63 replies to this topic

[Donnie Silveray]

Steel Claws, on 08 June 2013 - 07:46 PM, said:

I put forward a way to reduce the number of high damage weapons that could be boated a while back that could be balanced and scaled. And you can find it here: http://mwomercs.com/...-energy-builds/

A neat idea but rather complicated. We have seen how PGI struggles to respond to balancing over the course of several MONTHS in the current situation. Add on top of that tweaking values for your energy consumption, generation, and balance adjustments to nudge things in certain directions. We're talking slapping another layer of painful statistics ontop of something that probably needs more TLC. This is somewhat unoptimal, especially if most of PGI are hunkered down working on CW and other features for release. This becomes increasingly relevant when one simply looks at the core of the problem. Pinpoint damage is really a Large Laser/PPC problem due to the size of the weapons and their damage output compared to their heat generation + penalties for going hot. My Yen Lo Wang barely crested a hill and I suddenly lost my fully armored side torso (no XL engine thankfully) and I didn't even hear the impact sound. I don't even think the guy that tore off the shoulder even shut down afterwards.

The key to an simple problem is a simple solution. Ballistics have their huge weight and ammo restrictions. Missiles have flight time and very specific roles. E-weapons are supposedly balanced by their heat generation.... I don't see heat balancing them very well. It'd be best to address heat first to encourage more flexible builds that aren't going to turn your mech into a new sun in Frozen City.

[Butane9000]

They need to change the heat system so once you overheat past 105-110% and remain there for more then 1 second you start taking internal damage (even when not overriding). However they need to have weapons and items inside the mech take double the damage. This way excessive firing and overheating will kill a mechs weaponry fast.

[Steel Claws]

Maybe it's as easy as limiting mechs to large weapons in the arms and gun pods only - and only 1 per arm/pod. By large I would say AC 10, LX 10, AC 20, Gauss, PPC and large lasers (all). The reall issue is as it always has been the stalker. It's far too easy to boat big weapons on the stalker. Jump snipers didn't do that much damage and kept stalkers in check.

Edited by Steel Claws, 08 June 2013 - 09:37 PM.

[Rebas Kradd]

Zyllos, on 08 June 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

Well, this is the way I see it.

The changes I suggest does not make a weapon deal damage differently, but only how it applies damage differently, and being more inline with TT.

With weapons doing more damage across multiple locations, I feel that this does not effect the overall weapon at all. It just means you will end up firing more shots to kill a mech or slow down to get more shots onto a location to kill a mech. It's not changing the fact that ACs and PPCs do not deal all their damage to a single location or Missiles and LBX deals damage across multiple sections when firing.

That is why I disagree that the suggested changes will push back balancing. They were made in mind with the current system we have now, with players using multiple "all damage to single location" weapons so that, regardless where they hit, it all goes into a single location, just is most likely going to kill the mech when it does land.

I respect that you see convergence as basically a scalar, but I doubt players will see it that way. Yeah, it'll scale the time needed to kill a mech, but not only is that an enormous change to the tone of the game, but it won't affect all mechs equally and thus will create a new balance of power that everyone has to get used to. We have weapons that travel at different speeds and with subtly different trajectories; that alone makes eliminating convergence complicated. It wouldn't make much of a difference at closer ranges, but even a tiny bit of spread can completely nerf snipers' damage-dealing ability at 800+m. Legit ML/LL boaters would lose effectiveness depending on the chassis. I don't think longer-range dakkamechs would be fans of the change either. It would especially hamstring the balanced loadouts who like to use some of each.

You'd be promoting brawling and increasing kill time at the expense of forcing people to essentially relearn their mechs when much simpler and more focused solutions to the problem at hand - such as overheating penalties - exist. It reminds me ominously of SOE's midstream decision to shift to a new combat engine, and we know what that disruption accomplished. Let's use a scalpel on the patient instead of a sledgehammer.