58 replies to this topic

[RG Notch]

Tsig, on 16 June 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

You keep harping on about the people wanting limited customization. Saying we "Want to remove the Mechlab." Honestly, I don't want the Mechlab to go anywhere, but I don't think we should be able to fit a Gauss Rifle into the same slot that was occupied by a Machine Gun just a few seconds ago.

What does it matter what was in the slot before? Why does this mean anything? If you can fit a weapon into the slot by weight and criticals it should fit. Why does the fact a MG was in there previously mean anything. It's not like one is litterally swapping one for the other. One is shifting something else to fit it in. All this comes down to what people from TT see as the way a mech should be.
Seriously, what is the significance, other than silly TT fealty for there to be any significance to what was in a slot before?

[Tsig]

RG Notch, on 16 June 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

What does it matter what was in the slot before? Why does this mean anything? If you can fit a weapon into the slot by weight and criticals it should fit. Why does the fact a MG was in there previously mean anything. It's not like one is litterally swapping one for the other. One is shifting something else to fit it in. All this comes down to what people from TT see as the way a mech should be.
Seriously, what is the significance, other than silly TT fealty for there to be any significance to what was in a slot before?

Because, you literally ARE swapping one weapon for another. It matters a LOT what was in there before because that's what the mech was designed to use. The sheer size difference between a Machine Gun and a Gauss Rifle is ridiculous.

To be really honest...all this customization really does make the mechs feel bland. If each mech was more restricted in what weapons you could put on it and combine it with a Tonnage limit for drops, you'd finally see more variety in the mechs and weapons used in matches.

Also, we could look further at the benefits of the MW4 customization. Let's take the Awesome 9M. Each of the 3 PPCs takes up 3 slots. If PGI wanted, they could make each of the Energy Hardpoints have 4 slots, so if you free'd up the tonnage, you could add a Medium Laser to each of the PPCs and run with that. Or, since a Large Laser takes up 2 slots, you could cram 2 into each Energy hardpoint.

Your precious customization is still there, but it's had some limiters put on to keep it fun for everyone. I want everyone to have fun when playing this game, but this High-Alpha, "Get-Big-or-Get-Out" meta is killing the game I love.

[Pater Mors]

Sybreed, on 16 June 2013 - 06:42 AM, said:

If you keep convergence, you can never go back to normal armor values.

Actually you can or at least you can get closer than what we have now, because it becomes impossible to do 40 pts of damage to one armour plate instantly at any range without overheating and cooking yourself in the process.

Ballistics need to have inherent convergence penalties because that's just simple physics, as I said. This can apply to PPC's too if people really want that, but I don't particularly think it's needed with heat penalties.

Plus, the penalties for heat involve penalties to convergence (at least as I imagine them) when running hot for long periods or overheating so that solves it anyway.

Edited by Pater Mors, 16 June 2013 - 12:32 PM.

[Pater Mors]

Tsig, on 16 June 2013 - 12:17 PM, said:

To be really honest...all this customization really does make the mechs feel bland. If each mech was more restricted in what weapons you could put on it and combine it with a Tonnage limit for drops, you'd finally see more variety in the mechs and weapons used in matches.

Nah you wouldn't. You'd see 10 or so 'best chassis and builds' emerge and everyone would play them, much like FOTM builds now.

[RG Notch]

Pater Mors, on 16 June 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

Nah you wouldn't. You'd see 10 or so 'best chassis and builds' emerge and everyone would play them, much like FOTM builds now.

It amazes me that people honest and truly think that restrictions would create variety. They really do. It's because they aren't min maxers. Min maxers will only use what is "best" and thus if there is too much customization or too little you get no variety. If weapons aren't balanced, whatever carries the OP weapons in the best configuration, whether due to customizability or lack thereof will be used a lot.
I say this every time I comment on these threads: if you want variety you need to balance weapons or remove min maxers. Nothing else will change that.
Still no reasoning for the limits than fealty to TT sadly. Anyways, likelihood of any limitations at this point in development vanishly small, so I'll keep my customization thank you. Instead of wasting time on these threads, people wanting variety should use their energy more productively trying to get weapons balanced instead of trying to recapture TT builds that a small audience cares about.

[Pater Mors]

RG Notch, on 16 June 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

It amazes me that people honest and truly think that restrictions would create variety. They really do. It's because they aren't min maxers. Min maxers will only use what is "best" and thus if there is too much customization or too little you get no variety. If weapons aren't balanced, whatever carries the OP weapons in the best configuration, whether due to customizability or lack thereof will be used a lot.
I say this every time I comment on these threads: if you want variety you need to balance weapons or remove min maxers. Nothing else will change that.
Still no reasoning for the limits than fealty to TT sadly. Anyways, likelihood of any limitations at this point in development vanishly small, so I'll keep my customization thank you. Instead of wasting time on these threads, people wanting variety should use their energy more productively trying to get weapons balanced instead of trying to recapture TT builds that a small audience cares about.

Agreed.

I am fine with trying to apply things as canonically as possible up until it starts to effect actual game play. Restricting customization is bad for game play and it really is as simple as that.

[Otto Cannon]

Tsig, on 16 June 2013 - 12:17 PM, said:

If each mech was more restricted in what weapons you could put on it and combine it with a Tonnage limit for drops, you'd finally see more variety in the mechs and weapons used in matches.

There is not enough facepalm in the world for this attitude.



Forcing people to choose from a more limited number of builds- which is exactly what you are suggesting- is the worst possible thing you could do to encourage variety. It constantly amazes me that so many people can ignore the simple logic. If you want more variety then the answer is to make sure that weapons and game mechanics are balanced properly so that people will not see one build as much better than all others and will build mechs that fit their personal style instead. If you love the game then you should embrace the unlimited mechlab as the one thing that can allow the variety you want.

[Asmudius Heng]

Otto Cannon, on 16 June 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

There is not enough facepalm in the world for this attitude.


Forcing people to choose from a more limited number of builds- which is exactly what you are suggesting- is the worst possible thing you could do to encourage variety. It constantly amazes me that so many people can ignore the simple logic. If you want more variety then the answer is to make sure that weapons and game mechanics are balanced properly so that people will not see one build as much better than all others and will build mechs that fit their personal style instead. If you love the game then you should embrace the unlimited mechlab as the one thing that can allow the variety you want.

Balance must come first. Hardpoint limitation does not create balance. Imbalance creates lack of variety.

That being said, if weapons were more balanced then hardpoint limitations would actually help create more variety because there would be less reason to pick 'the best' chassis to boat 'the best' weapons.

Hardpoint limitations are about mech character and personality but this is secondary to good balance. It makes owning a mech feel more interesting and team loadouts more varied because not every mech can do pretty much most things. If we assume weapons are decently balanced then people would take a lot more variety of mechs to run a variety of different roles rather than just using a few mechs to fill in as many roles as they can.

The opposite end of the spectrum is no hardpoints. Do you think that would improve things now? I doubt it. No hardpoints brings massive problems of balance - but again are much less if all the weapons were better balanced. However, it would still cause more problems than having hardpoints.

[Otto Cannon]

Asmudius Heng, on 16 June 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

The opposite end of the spectrum is no hardpoints. Do you think that would improve things now? I doubt it. No hardpoints brings massive problems of balance - but again are much less if all the weapons were better balanced. However, it would still cause more problems than having hardpoints.

I think it's a perfectly valid point to say that hardpoints add character to mechs, and I'd agree with you there. As to removing them causing problems, I think that in a theoretical situation where the game and weapons are perfectly balanced it would cause no problems. In reality though, with PGI finding it so hard to tweak stats and react to abuse by minmaxers it would probably open a can of worms best left closed.

I just don't want to see any more limitations put on the mechlab on top of the existing ones, but rather have weapon issues dealt with in appropriate ways that solve the problems rather than distracting from them.

[Asmudius Heng]

Otto Cannon, on 16 June 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

I think it's a perfectly valid point to say that hardpoints add character to mechs, and I'd agree with you there. As to removing them causing problems, I think that in a theoretical situation where the game and weapons are perfectly balanced it would cause no problems. In reality though, with PGI finding it so hard to tweak stats and react to abuse by minmaxers it would probably open a can of worms best left closed.

I just don't want to see any more limitations put on the mechlab on top of the existing ones, but rather have weapon issues dealt with in appropriate ways that solve the problems rather than distracting from them.

Agree weapons issues first absolutely. Hardpoint limitations on top of poor balance is disasterous.

However I have to disagree with you on there being no problem with open customisation leading to no problems even with good weapons balance.

The stacking effect of weapons in the game with the mechanics as they are means those mechs that can boat are at an advantage to a greater of lesser degree depending on your point of view.

With no restrictions it becomes harder to balance a weapon being used as a single system, compared to stacking the bejezuz out of them.

I have visions of assaults with stupid numbers of medium lasers, or gauss rifles and such. Even with heat and damage ect balanced as well as possible the more people stack the more difficult it becomes to balance for individual weapons compared to stacks of them.

At least designated canon 'boats' could be looked at in isolation for some sort of quirks to make sure they are roughly balanced, or have some sort of weakness if the overarching system breaks at the extremities. They are already basically doing this for the Stalker but it is ham handed and over the top IMO.

If weapons balance was much better then restricted hardpoints would add an interesting additional challenge to mech building not taking anything away form it IMO. The restrictions should not be too harsh mind you - just because a small weapon was default does not mean the hardpoint HAS to be small for instance, but it would simply be more likely.

Anyway - i just hate the path of arguments taken about hardpoints which go from extreme edges and do not take into account the complexity of the argument.

"Hardpoints create balance!!!"
"You want to get rid of the mechlab!!"

both rediculous.

[cyberFluke]

Sybreed, on 16 June 2013 - 11:29 AM, said:

this game will also be pointless when everyone will be gone and believe me, CW is not this game's savior.

you haven't even read the OP have you? What he suggested lets you keep your precious customization but makes you think twice before putting the biggest weapon on every hardpoint available.

CW will make this game far worse. It will mean you must be sporting the latest FOTM build and/or exploiting all known game weaknesses to be "competitive". The exploits that people have kept quiet until release will become known and commonplace. The fact that the game is F2P and so accounts are disposable means the common cryengine aimbots and nethacks are easily abusable without fear of loss, that can't help matters either.

Edited by cyberFluke, 16 June 2013 - 05:56 PM.

[cyberFluke]

RG Notch, on 16 June 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

What does it matter what was in the slot before? Why does this mean anything? If you can fit a weapon into the slot by weight and criticals it should fit. Why does the fact a MG was in there previously mean anything. It's not like one is litterally swapping one for the other. One is shifting something else to fit it in. All this comes down to what people from TT see as the way a mech should be.
Seriously, what is the significance, other than silly TT fealty for there to be any significance to what was in a slot before?

It matters because every mech ends up running the same thing, the "best" weapons/build.
Ravens with two ERPPCs are a valid (and effective) build under the current system, it's gone beyond f**king parody.

[RG Notch]

cyberFluke, on 16 June 2013 - 05:53 PM, said:

It matters because every mech ends up running the same thing, the "best" weapons/build.
Ravens with two ERPPCs are a valid (and effective) build under the current system, it's gone beyond f**king parody.

So instead it would be the mech that can run the most of whatever weapon is OP instead of seeing every mech armed with the OP weapon. Is that variety? Besides, none of that has anything to do with what was in the slot previous, again other than fealty to what TT fluff said a mech was designed for.

[Otto Cannon]

Asmudius Heng, on 16 June 2013 - 05:44 PM, said:

However I have to disagree with you on there being no problem with open customisation leading to no problems even with good weapons balance.

The stacking effect of weapons in the game with the mechanics as they are means those mechs that can boat are at an advantage to a greater of lesser degree depending on your point of view.

Just to explain myself on this point; as you say, there is a problem with the current game mechanics when it comes to multiple weapons. If you built a mech with nothing but medium lasers, for example, they would all fire and hit the same spot on your target like a deathstar cannon of doom at the moment. I think that if PGI can manage to resolve that issue by changing convergence mechanics then boating wouldn't be something to worry about with mech designs and there wouldn't be a need to stop people building mechs like that in the first place.

[cyberFluke]

Otto Cannon, on 16 June 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

Just to explain myself on this point; as you say, there is a problem with the current game mechanics when it comes to multiple weapons. If you built a mech with nothing but medium lasers, for example, they would all fire and hit the same spot on your target like a deathstar cannon of doom at the moment. I think that if PGI can manage to resolve that issue by changing convergence mechanics then boating wouldn't be something to worry about with mech designs and there wouldn't be a need to stop people building mechs like that in the first place.

Amen. MWO's biggest problem by a country mile is the pinpoint aiming we currently have. Breaks any attempt at weapon balance for the reason you've stated. Strapping 6 PPCs to a STK wouldn't be half as effective if they sprayed all over the place because you were at 90% heat when you fired them all at once.

Combine that with lowering the heat cap and upping dissipation and boating is no longer desirable. No need for any extra heat penalty system.

Edited by cyberFluke, 16 June 2013 - 06:30 PM.

[Sybreed]

Otto Cannon, on 16 June 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

Just to explain myself on this point; as you say, there is a problem with the current game mechanics when it comes to multiple weapons. If you built a mech with nothing but medium lasers, for example, they would all fire and hit the same spot on your target like a deathstar cannon of doom at the moment. I think that if PGI can manage to resolve that issue by changing convergence mechanics then boating wouldn't be something to worry about with mech designs and there wouldn't be a need to stop people building mechs like that in the first place.

First of all, thank you for taking a less "hostile" tone (it wasn't actually hostile, but you know what I mean).

Second of all, I agree with the entire paragraph you just wrote. I think I should always add the part "add hardpoint limitations to bring mech personnality" when I'm talking about hardpoint sizes (what Asmodius said earlier). The Awesome is a good example of what I'm trying to explain: Right now, with the current system, you would be crazy to use an Awesome over a Stalker. The Stalker is just better in every way and the hardpoint system is the only cause to this issue (you could argue that this could be defined as an issue or not), no amount of weapon balance will solve this. Even with all weapons perfectly balanced, the Stalker will always be better than an Awesome (better profile, better hardpoints, 5 more tons for HS and etc), unless you tweak the hardpoints a little so the Awesome is the only mech that can use PPCs in the most effective way possible. It then becomes a niche mech, a PPC sniper that no other mechs can mimick.

But I'll be honest with you, I'm also convinced the devs will never implement any kind of hardpoint size system. Still, I also think they are fooling themselves when they're saying "we prefer the approach of letting the players pick the mech they want and build it so it fits their playstyle", because the Awesome is the perfect example of that approach not working at all. I'm sure a lot of people would love to use their Awesomes more often, but they would be putting themselves at a big disadvantage with the current system in place.

Edited by Sybreed, 16 June 2013 - 06:40 PM.

[Asmudius Heng]

Otto Cannon, on 16 June 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

Just to explain myself on this point; as you say, there is a problem with the current game mechanics when it comes to multiple weapons. If you built a mech with nothing but medium lasers, for example, they would all fire and hit the same spot on your target like a deathstar cannon of doom at the moment. I think that if PGI can manage to resolve that issue by changing convergence mechanics then boating wouldn't be something to worry about with mech designs and there wouldn't be a need to stop people building mechs like that in the first place.

I agree - however I think I am being realistic when I say that PGI will not do anything drastic to change how we aim.

They have stated that harpdoint limitation have been looked at though.

I would see hardpoints being changed before a core game mechanic such as how aiming takes place. I simply think they refuse to touch that.

Better heat mechanics, better ways that weapons hit etc will help but changes so not every weapon hits the same location is the only real solution - but i just cannot see them touching that one.

As such I always try to keep any suggestions in the 'Low Hanging Fruit' range even if its not the best solution

[Sybreed]

well, talking privately to some people showed that many are actually more in favor of this suggestion than Paul's heat penalty for alphas and, IMO, there's no reason for PGI NOT to use this idea. The only reason why they wouldn't go with this is because they're afraid to mention anything related to hardpoint sizes.

[Zyllos]

Otto Cannon, on 16 June 2013 - 10:19 AM, said:

Utterly pointless. This wouldn't solve anything at all and it would make the game much less fun. We already have hardpoints that were never in Battletech.

When the game is balanced properly it doesn't matter what you build in the mechlab because it won't give you an advantage.

No, instead, if following your idea, is that you just take the mech with the best silhouette and there would be no point in playing all other mechs.

That is why there are hardpoint and engine restrictions. So that each mech is unique.

[RG Notch]

Zyllos, on 19 June 2013 - 12:01 PM, said:

No, instead, if following your idea, is that you just take the mech with the best silhouette and there would be no point in playing all other mechs.

That is why there are hardpoint and engine restrictions. So that each mech is unique.

So lets make them so restrictive that instead of all mechs boating the same OP weapons, we'll have a few mechs that can boat the OP weapons. Or we could balance weapons and not need more restrictions.
Too little customization ruins variety as surely as too much. We have a fair amount now, just need to have more useful weapons to choose for the system we have now.