13 replies to this topic

[Tarrasque]

After a conversation with one of the smartest people I know about the state of MWO (he's waiting for CW to play), his experience with older MW games lead him to what I thought was an interesting concept to control the alpha meta.


As much as I cringe when I hear people suggest the introduction of ANOTHER mechanic to balance, I think this could be made simple, and I'd like to see where the forum could take this, if anywhere, so give me your input!


Basically you have a separate value, a 'power system' in the way we think of circuit breakers. Give each weapon a 'current value' - meet or exceed the engine's limitation and you auto-shutdown.

In the example he gave me, we use 50 as the engine value, and place weapons along the line, very similarly to the heat scale - if ERPPCs' voltage value is something like 15, you could conceivably alpha 3 of them, but the engine cap of 50 also only allows 5 more 'volts' or what have you, which means you have little in the means of remaining weaponry or tech (ECM, MASC).

What this means is a full on alpha with a max voltage will shut you down immediately, but cycle firing many weapons would be acceptable.

Another idea tossed about instead of a binary on/off voltage metric, the dissipation could be tied into recycle time - charge dissipates after recycle, which would slow combat down some without having to tweak damage.


This could, IMO, add a very interesting aspect to mech design and usage in MWO - you'd have to seriously consider what weaponry and gear is worth bringing to a match, and commit to a role if you want the ability to use loads of heavy, similar weaponry.


I honestly just wrote this as a loose transcript of a conversation over Steam in the last 20 minutes, so this is something of a thought experiment, but what do you guys think? Its not thought through massively, but could we tweak this to work somehow?

Edited by Tarrasque, 12 June 2013 - 06:39 PM.

[Ningyo]

yes it could be made to work, however its overly complicated and simpler adding in of BATTLETECHS heat penalties is an easier method that everyone that has ever played any implementation of battletech expects to exist when they first play the game.

Also unfortunately due to engine sizes tending to if anything get smaller on larger mechs, this would not make much sense as a power supply issue. Of course all tech in Battletech makes no sense so the idea does sort of fit in lol. (I love the ammo teleporters in my mechs legs, so useful. And the targeting computers that can't aim at a 30 foot tall monstrosity standing nearly still 100m away, but can rapidly shoot down missiles with an AMS. What can I say even Magic Big Stompy Robots are fun)

[PEEFsmash]

I see no difference between heat and voltage other than a renaming, and a replacement of shutting down with being unable to shoot in the first place.

I don't think this idea is good at all. And the "would slow combat down some" goal is also very worrying, considering how slow this game is already. Why would you want to slow this game's combat down?!

[Mongoose Trueborn]

People couldn't rely on long range high alpha builds if brawlers could get on top of them and if we had high dps weapons. Brawlers need speed to close the gap or armor to survive long enough on the way in to make a difference. Instead of making it so that brawlers could get into range (damage, armor or speed) they destroy a mechanic that is fun. (JJ)

The high alpha counter should be dps builds. Making alpha's do the same dps as everything else was a mistake. You don't get a fun balance by making everything even, you need rock, paper, scissors and it's just not there.

[PEEFsmash]

Mongoose Trueborn, on 12 June 2013 - 08:18 PM, said:

People couldn't rely on long range high alpha builds if brawlers could get on top of them and if we had high dps weapons. Brawlers need speed to close the gap or armor to survive long enough on the way in to make a difference. Instead of making it so that brawlers could get into range (damage, armor or speed) they destroy a mechanic that is fun. (JJ)

The high alpha counter should be dps builds. Making alpha's do the same dps as everything else was a mistake. You don't get a fun balance by making everything even, you need rock, paper, scissors and it's just not there.

Exactly right. Brawler weapons (aka, short range weapons) should do a much higher DPS/ton. Lasers and SRMs in particular should be buffed to crush long range direct fire weapons if the gap can be closed. Right now, snipers are as good at brawling as brawlers. Don't nerf snipers or ruin the role, buff brawlers. I've been saying it since I started playing, and I know many others have been saying it for much longer.
The world of changes that buffing SRM damage up to 2.2-2.5 would do....

Edited by PEEFsmash, 12 June 2013 - 08:23 PM.

[Mongoose Trueborn]

PEEFsmash, on 12 June 2013 - 08:23 PM, said:

Exactly right. Brawler weapons (aka, short range weapons) should do a much higher DPS/ton. Lasers and SRMs in particular should be buffed to crush long range direct fire weapons if the gap can be closed. Right now, snipers are as good at brawling as brawlers. Don't nerf snipers or ruin the role, buff brawlers. I've been saying it since I started playing, and I know many others have been saying it for much longer.
The world of changes that buffing SRM damage up to 2.2-2.5 would do....

Devs don't listen to ppl that kick ***, they listen to ppl that lick it.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

Of course SRM has to be buffed, but at the same time I don't want this to become too fast paced action shooter, slower pace is why many people are into this. And that's why I'm on the nerf side more in balance. Spamming high dps is the wrong way to go.

[Zaptruder]

@PEEFSmash - brawler weapons have been strong... and problematic in the past.

The problem is massive damage to a single body part in a single hit, irrespective of the source it comes from.

In BT, this problem is dealt with by way of weapon balance, and requring that each weapon fired has its own to hit roll and hit location roll.

In MWO, if we accept that we need to keep the constraints of BT's mechbuilding + having group fire + having convergence... then we're either going to have to accept massive pin point damage one way or another (the weapon to do this changes, but the idea behind it is always the same)... or accept that we'll need a tertiary system not covered by the existing mechanics to mitigate the excesses of convergence.

[Ningyo]

The problem isn't any weapons though some need tweaked the problem is we are playing rock, paper, scissors, hand-grenade (pinpoint alpha). And so everyone picks the hand-grenade for some odd reason.

[Chemie]

I was thinking more about a rechcrage concept. Your engine only has so much insta power; fire one PPC and it can recharge; fire three and they have to recharge one at a time.

[Ralgas]

Chemie, on 13 June 2013 - 03:59 AM, said:

I was thinking more about a rechcrage concept. Your engine only has so much insta power; fire one PPC and it can recharge; fire three and they have to recharge one at a time.

now that's an idea that could work, assuming every little patch and server lag didn't have mechs locked out of weapons excessively.

[Serenade]

I'd rather something was added like a protective casing on energy weapons which if exposed to high levels of heat (say 90%+) for long enough will begin to break down til it becomes useless at which point energy based weapons will deal half their damage value back on the section of the 'mech they happen to be housed in. Should eliminate a lot of energy based boating builds as well as make people more wary of managing their heat.

Edited by Serenade, 13 June 2013 - 04:36 AM.

[HighlandCoo]

Heat already has the cabability of doing all of this - without the need for a new feature.

It just needs tweaked - no need to add more sci fi gizmo hand waving deux ex machina crud to the game.

[Livewyr]

When you can effectively brawl with PPCs.. there's a problem.