704 replies to this topic

[Stomp]

Lowridah, on 12 June 2013 - 06:33 AM, said:

I hear hooked on Phoenics works, try it.

I think he means Phonics.

Shoot, they all beat me to it. :/

Edited by Stomp, 17 June 2013 - 02:14 AM.

[Amberite]

OP's idea has significant merits. Well thought out, good idea that was well presented. Now.....if only we can convince PGI to damn well listen for once.

[Homeless Bill]

MustrumRidcully, on 17 June 2013 - 12:52 AM, said:

Would it still be to low if you couldn't group-fire?

If you're equipped with just 4 weapons, you'd fire an average of every 2.5 seconds.

AC/40 Jagers or Quad PPC Stalkers fire only every 4 seconds.
An AC/20 + 4 ML + 2 SRM Atlas would need to fire 3 weapons seperately inside a 4 second window.

It's just one man's opinion, but I think that's too slow for the pace of combat. I'll give you this: tripling rate of fire and doubling armor values has had some unintended consequences. That said, I think it's more awesome to fire more stuff more often as long as it doesn't have drastic repercussions. It's shinier, it makes combat feel more intense, and it plays better with the mainstream crowd as well.

It's down to preference, but I'll take a balanced version of what we have over a slower and more methodical approach to combat.

Though I'll address this fully in the article / updated OP, one big reason I don't like removing accurate group fire is that it punishes strikers. Strikers are those 'mechs that are meant to get in, unleash a quick alpha, and duck back out before getting seen. They're mostly mediums like Hunchbacks and Blackjacks, but fast Awesomes and Dragons are often played the same way. Forcing chain-fire unduly punishes what is a totally legitimate tactic and hurts a key role of mediums. Mediums really don't need any less love than they get now.

cyberFluke, on 16 June 2013 - 07:51 PM, said:

As a simplistic stopgap, how harmful do you think just removing convergence unless chain firing would be?

See the last paragraph. It's not bad, and I'd rather they do that than start playing with the heat system. But I'd still rather it be based on a tweak-able set of numbers than a hard numerical limit.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 17 June 2013 - 02:17 AM.

[Stomp]

I enjoy how this system effects (or rather, doesn't really) all of my mech chassis builds, which are decidedly uncheesy. It brings them forward as now-viable competitors with the giant-damage-alpha-warrior etc that I've seen from pretty much every organized game. Especially the 8v8 right now. Example: Try bringing a 5 x AC/2 Jagermech with a macro, which provides excellent dps, but little alpha, against the 4/5/6 PPC Stalkers. Good luck taking down a Stalker when two shots are enough to core me!

But under this my build is now viable again! Granted, I might need to SLOW the macro down in order to avoid taxing my targetting computer... but I can have two macros! One for sustained, normal DPS... and one for stupid fast, balls-to-the-wall burst DPS that will eventually screw my aim and hilarity will ensue as my guns go firing into nothing. And I'm completely in love with this system, in that it really equalizes pretty much every cheese that I've ever encountered. And my Hunchback 4G is completely unaffected by any changes! Shoot the AC/20, take cover. Use the mediums on those pesky lights' legs! Torso twist to accept the streaks, and return fire with my AC/20 and plant it in their face. An aside to this, but as long as combat becomes paced, it could be called boring, but it also allows for more creative control over the combat itself! It's not just camping or capping. Understanding that you're now PAYING for that shot means that competitively you'll want to coordinate firepower with varied builds with reasonable amounts of weapons to use in every situation, not just in Cheese steamrolling matches.

As a short question for Homeless Bill, it's late but I thought I saw some part of this address the imbalances of weight classes in matches? What would you, as a random dude, do to change the disproportionate amount of Assaults or Heavies in a match? And I understand that for people coming to this game to the first time, Less Assaults sounds like Less Fun. But I grew up in MW:2, and the books. From Yen Lo Wang, with Kai Allard stomping clanners with his Gauss and kicking *** in a medium! Not everybody was so fortunate to have an assault mech, haha.



Also, I'm seeing a lack of DEVS in this thread. Am I to understand that as all these players have pooled their resources only to have all this hard work go for naught? A show of presence might not go amiss at this point. In fact, I'd enjoy seeing an in-depth response to this proposal from anybody from anybody in an official capacity.

edit: ****, I wall-o-texted, my bad

Edited by Stomp, 17 June 2013 - 02:34 AM.

[Homeless Bill]

Stomp, on 17 June 2013 - 02:33 AM, said:

I enjoy how this system effects (or rather, doesn't really) all of my mech chassis builds, which are decidedly uncheesy. It brings them forward as now-viable competitors with the giant-damage-alpha-warrior etc that I've seen from pretty much every organized game. Especially the 8v8 right now. Example: Try bringing a 5 x AC/2 Jagermech with a macro, which provides excellent dps, but little alpha, against the 4/5/6 PPC Stalkers. Good luck taking down a Stalker when two shots are enough to core me! Granted, I might need to SLOW the macro down in order to avoid taxing my targetting computer...

An aside to this, but as long as combat becomes paced, it could be called boring, but it also allows for more creative control over the combat itself!

As a short question for Homeless Bill, it's late but I thought I saw some part of this address the imbalances of weight classes in matches? What would you, as a random dude, do to change the disproportionate amount of Assaults or Heavies in a match? And I understand that for people coming to this game to the first time, Less Assaults sounds like Less Fun. But I grew up in MW:2, and the books. From Yen Lo Wang, with Kai Allard stomping clanners with his Gauss and kicking *** in a medium! Not everybody was so fortunate to have an assault mech, haha.

Also, I'm seeing a lack of DEVS in this thread. Am I to understand that as all these players have pooled their resources only to have all this hard work go for naught? A show of presence might not go amiss at this point. In fact, I'd enjoy seeing an in-depth response to this proposal from anybody from anybody in an official capacity.

I appreciate the positive feedback. I definitely want snipers to be able to do their thing, but DPS builds need some serious love. Trying to play my CTF-4X last night was like pulling teeth. With the current numbers, I believe you can continuously fire exactly 5xAC/2 without ever overloading the targeting computer. And the beauty of it is this: if that was the new cheese, they could just tweak the TCS up a little bit to make it so that four was the most you could fire continuously.

One thing I like about my solution is that the pace of combat shouldn't change much at all. It's just that you'll need to click two or three times to put your damage on target. DPS will still be completely heat-limited.

Straight-up, I think they should give you more money for playing a medium. I'd have something like a "reward multiplier" for each class/tonnage/chassis that gets adjusted based on supply/demand in the queue. Initial numbers would maybe be something like this:
Light: 1.0
Medium: 1.2
Heavy: 0.9
Assault: 0.8

They could also set class/tonnage limits and display the wait time for each class/tonnage so players could decide. But I'm in favor of the free market approach. Strict limits are icky. You should be able to play what you want without having to wait around; you should just be heavily baited towards what's good for the metagame.

[Yanlowen Cage]

Stomp? CI Stomp? 4 erppc stalker stomp? Just wondering.

[Killhunger]

I like the suggestion.

I always thought it seemed odd for PGI to have specific stock mechs, when in practice they aren't viable vs a cheese build.

Maybe they will remember this post when they find they no longer enjoy playing their own game as they get sniped by the same allowed cheese builds over and over wondering why no one is still playing their broken game.

We can hope.

[Tastian]

While I like your approach OP, I think its overly complicating things. You are looking at this with numbers like TT but this is a shooter. I think 3 things would totally fix the current state of the game:

1. Gradual heat scale penalty like TT - http://d20battletech.wikidot.com/heat

2. Remove convergence pinpointing. Sure, if 2 PPCs are on your right torso, you'd expect them to hit the same spot on the target. But a PPC on the right torso and a PPC on the left arm probably won't.

3. Borderlands 2. MWO Machine Guns, LBX, and SRMS have a cone of fire that represent terrible accuracy (shotgun). Give every weapon a targeting accuracy. Gauss and AC2s could be the ultimate sniper weapon with a pinpoint accuracy but other weapons have a small to large firing cone. Also, as you continue firing and/or your heat scale gets higher, the accuracy of your weapons may get worse represented by a widening target reticle.

[Tombstoner]

Brown Hornet, on 17 June 2013 - 01:33 AM, said:

PGI have never ever redone anything from scratch because their egos write cheques their bodies can't cash. No seriously, it's a well thought out post but the solution needs to be expressed in fewer words. Firstly, armlock needs to go. Weapon reticule needs to jiggle when moving and heat penalties need to be meaningful. That will be enough for me.

I am temped to agree but i think its more likely they have a good project manager. one who understands the need to keep to and not infinity extend a scheduled. it may not have been easily apparent to people not intimately antiquated to the TT rule and pc gaming that pin point alpha damage was going to be such an issue. convergence was shelved in alpha or early beta and it's now chomping on there junk.

A rule in development is you will spend 90% of your time on the last 10% of your project. convergence will be addressed hopefully right before launch with a new game mechanic. so the new people that join dont have to relearn the game. if its chosen to do so later the best time frame will be 6 months after launch for the same reasons. you need to treat the new people right.

[Zyllos]

Homeless Bill, on 17 June 2013 - 02:47 AM, said:

Straight-up, I think they should give you more money for playing a medium. I'd have something like a "reward multiplier" for each class/tonnage/chassis that gets adjusted based on supply/demand in the queue. Initial numbers would maybe be something like this:

Light: 1.0
Medium: 1.2
Heavy: 0.9
Assault: 0.8

They could also set class/tonnage limits and display the wait time for each class/tonnage so players could decide. But I'm in favor of the free market approach. Strict limits are icky. You should be able to play what you want without having to wait around; you should just be heavily baited towards what's good for the metagame.

You can implement a tonnage limit that doesn't negatively effect the time needed for the matchmaker.

With the lobby and dropship modes, you could just set a 200t limit for the mechs a single player can bring. 2x Assaults vs 4x Heavy/Medium/Light vs 3x Heavy/Light would be some of the most common loadouts.

The respawn system balances out taking multiple Assaults versus players taking out Mediums in that the Assault players only get 2 respawns while the Medium players get 4 respawns.

Think of some matches in Frozen City - Conquest, in that one team basically ignores the capture points until they are way ahead in the number of mechs then moves to capture the points at the last minute against one mech on the other team. This way of gameplay would disappear because that one mech's team would respawn, push the players off the objectives, and due to their early lead in points, would most likely win the game.

This also puts more emphasis on spliting up because even if you get taken out, you will respawn and be ahead in points. The Assault game mode would not change due to respawns and tonnage limit but that is because of what that game mode is trying to achieve.

[JokerVictor]

Just want to throw my hat in the ring and say that this is the most brilliant idea I've seen yet for balancing this game. It solves all the problems with the high alpha meta in one fell swoop and yet doesn't punish brawlers. Bravo.

It's also a damn sight more intuitive than the crappy and completely arbitrary proposed heat scaling idea that's on the table (yet another example of refusing to reevaluate a broken system). A complete heat system overhaul combined with this idea would bring balance back to the meta, something I absolutely have to see happen before I even consider reinstalling this game.

I somehow doubt this will ever be implemented, because PGI seem incapable of recognizing good ideas. Don't worry though, they have plenty of bad ideas to try first.

[Homeless Bill]

OP updated with final HUD mock-ups. Feedback is appreciated.

Tastian, on 17 June 2013 - 06:30 AM, said:

While I like your approach OP, I think its overly complicating things. You are looking at this with numbers like TT but this is a shooter. I think 3 things would totally fix the current state of the game:

1. Gradual heat scale penalty like TT - http://d20battletech.wikidot.com/heat

2. Remove convergence pinpointing. Sure, if 2 PPCs are on your right torso, you'd expect them to hit the same spot on the target. But a PPC on the right torso and a PPC on the left arm probably won't.

3. Borderlands 2. MWO Machine Guns, LBX, and SRMS have a cone of fire that represent terrible accuracy (shotgun). Give every weapon a targeting accuracy. Gauss and AC2s could be the ultimate sniper weapon with a pinpoint accuracy but other weapons have a small to large firing cone. Also, as you continue firing and/or your heat scale gets higher, the accuracy of your weapons may get worse represented by a widening target reticle.

1. The heat scale penalty will, in my mind, mandate a weapon re-balancing. It shafts all energy weapons (and lasers really don't need any punishment right now), and will cause people to prefer ballistics and missiles. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad idea, but it doesn't fix the current problem and introduces a host of issues.

2. Removing convergence wholesale is too extreme, and the vast majority of users here (and particularly the mainstream gamers) will reject such a confusing system. There will be a detailed response to this in the article/update, but it turns this into a drastically different game.

3. This sounds like the random cone of fire that so many people hate. All this really does is punish people that can aim from running anything besides the weapons of your choosing. And one of the weapons of your choosing is Gauss, the no-heat, long-range sniper cannon that can put 15 points of damage on a component?

What you see as over-complicated I see as avoiding the odd quagmire that proposals like yours put us in. The massive changes to pacing, weapon balance, and gameplay would have all sorts of unknowable, cascading effects. It's sloppy to try to hijack other systems to fix this problem, and it's dangerous to make sweeping changes that will have all sorts of repercussions in other parts of the game.

Whereas everything you want to do affects the player in a rather drastic way, my solution is simple and intuitive in terms of how the player interacts with it. It encourages fire discipline and nothing else. I designed this system to prevent any sort of collateral damage, and I think it ends up being pretty surgical.

Zyllos, on 17 June 2013 - 06:57 AM, said:

You can implement a tonnage limit that doesn't negatively effect the time needed for the matchmaker.

With the lobby and dropship modes, you could just set a 200t limit for the mechs a single player can bring. 2x Assaults vs 4x Heavy/Medium/Light vs 3x Heavy/Light would be some of the most common loadouts.

The respawn system balances out taking multiple Assaults versus players taking out Mediums in that the Assault players only get 2 respawns while the Medium players get 4 respawns.

For dropship mode, I think that has the potential to work pretty well. But what's the incentive not to just drop two Atlases, do what you can, die twice, and drop into another match with other 'mechs for maximum turnaround? Personally, I'd still like to see a financial carrot to encourage piloting mediums.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 17 June 2013 - 02:37 PM.

[ThunderOverWater]

+1 Bill, this is a great idea. I was dissatisfied with the lack of logic behind the heat penalty mechanic, but Targeting Computer Load strikes the intersection of gameplay balance, logic, and lore. As an added bonus, a TCL will complicate the game even more, which should appeal to the Battletech hardcores.

[Zyllos]

Homeless Bill, on 17 June 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

For dropship mode, I think that would has the potential to work pretty well. But what's the incentive not to just drop two Atlases, do what you can, die twice, and drop into another match with other 'mechs for maximum turnaround? Personally, I'd still like to see a financial carrot to encourage piloting mediums.

While I see your argument, the current system is set up the same way, run in, do as much damage as possible, die, then jump into another with a new mech.

This is tied down by the fact that when you drop in a game, those mechs you dropped with are locked for the duration of the match.

Either way, this is slightly off topic.

[Lazy Eye]

Just want to add WRT to lower RoF... in spite of this being 'beta' software, I've never had the chance to try it, to really decide for myself whether it really *is* too slow.

IF the Devs had said/say "we're going to test RoF of 1/10 seconds for 2 weeks with 'normal' armour values", would people (have) complain(ed)? I mean, sure, people would like it or not, but at least they'd be able to see that it really does or doesn't work and PGI would have real, hard data about the effects...

Maybe they could even run a poll on the forums to ask what people preferred and put a link to it from the game client...

[Stomp]

Yanlowen Cage, on 17 June 2013 - 02:51 AM, said:

Stomp? CI Stomp? 4 erppc stalker stomp? Just wondering.

Er, I don't even OWN a Stalker, but other than that you're on track haha

[Tombstoner]

i like the rate of fire currently in the game.
what i dont like regarding heat is the inability to build a heat neutral load out that's actually viable:besides gauss.
i think a lot of my teams losses result from simply missing one to two times more then the opfor. alpha damage is such that any misses are deadly. heat capacity should not be a metaphor for clip size.

[Homeless Bill]

colorado, on 17 June 2013 - 11:15 AM, said:

As an added bonus, a TCL will complicate the game even more, which should appeal to the Battletech hardcores.

Finally, someone that doesn't mind some light simulation elements. It's as intuitive as it can be for the FPS crowd while giving us sim-heads another interesting element. Maybe this system should only be implemented in "hardcore" mode =P

Zyllos, on 17 June 2013 - 11:41 AM, said:

This is tied down by the fact that when you drop in a game, those mechs you dropped with are locked for the duration of the match.

Either way, this is slightly off topic.

The problem I foresee is that anyone with four assaults could just spam drop without ever having to worry about down-time. I really hope that your suggestion is what they're doing, but I also hope they still plan to give financial incentives for lower weights (and this is coming from someone that prefers heavies and assaults).

Slightly, but it's my thread, and I get the feeling no one of any importance has read this far =P

Lazy Eye, on 17 June 2013 - 01:41 PM, said:

Just want to add WRT to lower RoF... in spite of this being 'beta' software, I've never had the chance to try it, to really decide for myself whether it really *is* too slow.

As much fun as I have theorizing what impacts all these systems will have on gameplay, I too would like to know for sure. I can only speculate that it would be too slow, but there's no way to tell until you're in a live environment where everyone has the same conditions.

But since I can't, I've done all the endless speculation I can about my system and the alternatives to figure out how to cause the least amount of collateral damage.

Tombstoner, on 17 June 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

what i dont like regarding heat is the inability to build a heat neutral load out that's actually viable:besides gauss.
i think a lot of my teams losses result from simply missing one to two times more then the opfor. alpha damage is such that any misses are deadly. heat capacity should not be a metaphor for clip size.

My heat-neutral Awesome used to tear **** up in brawls. Now? Two clicks and the barn door pops. I dislike the large-risk, extreme-reward of the alpha builds, but I dislike even more when three or more PPC Stalkers in a pack effectively eliminate the risk part. The pinpoint alpha issue is compounded immensely by the ubiquity of beef.

I just really hope they don't sweep this problem under the rug by fixing class balance and leaving the rest unaddressed. Just because there's less cheese doesn't mean that cheese isn't a problem.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 17 June 2013 - 03:35 PM.

[Cest7]

I don't think Cone of Fire penalty is better than a heat penalty. Cone of fire was brought up as an alternative to convergence back in closed beta and met heavy resistance. The idea was scrapped and we've come too far to start slapping accuracy penalties on everything.

I would rather manage my heat than try and fight with an RNG for accuracy.
Missing your shot will cause you to fire again and run a risk of overheating.

Overheating makes you stop. I don't want to shoot and have my mech go ".....mmmmaybe".

[Homeless Bill]

Cest7, on 17 June 2013 - 03:39 PM, said:

I don't think Cone of Fire penalty is better than a heat penalty. Cone of fire was brought up as an alternative to convergence back in closed beta and met heavy resistance. The idea was scrapped and we've come too far to start slapping accuracy penalties on everything.

I would rather manage my heat than try and fight with an RNG for accuracy.

Somehow, I feel like you did your best not to read the OP at all...