180 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Quote

Plus, it makes the Awesome the PPC sniper it's supposed to be, again, since it's the only assault that can use PPCs without penalty (until other assault mechs come)

But those Assault Mechs will just be so that 4 PPC Alphas are not as impressive from them?

[Dock Steward]

Sybreed, on 19 June 2013 - 09:37 AM, said:

I still think the alternate harpdoint idea is the best of both worlds... plus it gets rid of Paul's convoluted heat penalty system.

You have a small hardpoint but want to fit in a big gun? Fine, you can.

BUT!

It's gonna generate more heat, have a slower RoF, etc.

All you need is a tooltip warning you about the potential penalty for boating a massive weapon in a place where it wasn't designed for. It's a bit like putting a V8 engine in a honda civic. Sure, I guess you could (maybe?) but your suspension and breaks aren't gonna last long. That fixes all the pinpoint alpha boating and LRM boating. You can still do that, but at the cost of more heat generated and therefore you fire less often.

Plus, it makes the Awesome the PPC sniper it's supposed to be, again, since it's the only assault that can use PPCs without penalty (until other assault mechs come)

I think it is an elegant idea that deserves more merit.

Just curious, is that your idea, or did you get it from someone else? Because it's a great one. The heat generated by going up in tonnage would be on a direct scale based on what the original weapon was and what the new weapon is and the difference between them.

Non of this randomly decide how many is okay BS. A mathematical system of deciding how much more heat is generated by putting a large laser where a medium laser was, or a PPC in that same slot. It works. Nicely.

Can we does this please?

Edited by Dock Steward, 19 June 2013 - 09:48 AM.

[WarRats]

Ok Dock.

You brought up the 4SP which is a brawler loadout stock.

Lets say there are 4 refits that you can choose instead of the stock loadout.

One refit could be 2 LRM-5s to replace the SRM6s. extra ammo and hs or armor

Second refit could be a simply lose a laser for another heat sink.

Third refit would be double heat sinks, pulse lasers, endo steel, Artims. Just an overall enhancement of the base design.

Fourth be a sniper refit acouple large lasers and small LRMs. Also with DHS, ES.


Each Varient would stick to one or two logical roles. It might not make everyone happy, but I believe it would work.

[Dock Steward]

WarRats, on 19 June 2013 - 09:49 AM, said:

Ok Dock.

You brought up the 4SP which is a brawler loadout stock.

Lets say there are 4 refits that you can choose instead of the stock loadout.

One refit could be 2 LRM-5s to replace the SRM6s. extra ammo and hs or armor

Second refit could be a simply lose a laser for another heat sink.

Third refit would be double heat sinks, pulse lasers, endo steel, Artims. Just an overall enhancement of the base design.

Fourth be a sniper refit acouple large lasers and small LRMs. Also with DHS, ES.


Each Varient would stick to one or two logical roles. It might not make everyone happy, but I believe it would work.

I mean, it's not a bad idea, but honestly, after reading what Sybreed just had to say about hardpoint restrictions, I gotta go with his idea over yours.

His still allows complete customization options, but at a trade off. Yours is really just locking variants' loadouts, but adding more variants, or variants of variants. Instead of choosing the 4SP, you choose between the 4SP-A, 4SP-B, etc. Like I said, it's not bad, but so much farther from where we are now than Sybreed's proposal. His actually seems like a pretty simple change, and in the end, I think balance is still found, but without sacrificing options.

[GonZo626]

The problem with the game balancing has never been in the weapons. The problem is in the mechs themselves. Being able to shoehorn in an ac20 in a spot that should hold a MG is the stupid part. A PPC should not fit in that small laser spot. If the made there hardpoints a little more like mw4. You have 3 laser hard points in a limb that should be 3 small or med lasers, but only 1 PPC as the PPC takes 3 hardpoints to put in place. Balanced. No more stalkers running 6 PPC because they had 6 energy hardpoints. I have never understood why this has not been implemented. It would make varients different from one another more so, and would stop the boating.

[Dock Steward]

GonZo626, on 19 June 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

The problem with the game balancing has never been in the weapons. The problem is in the mechs themselves. Being able to shoehorn in an ac20 in a spot that should hold a MG is the stupid part. A PPC should not fit in that small laser spot. If the made there hardpoints a little more like mw4. You have 3 laser hard points in a limb that should be 3 small or med lasers, but only 1 PPC as the PPC takes 3 hardpoints to put in place. Balanced. No more stalkers running 6 PPC because they had 6 energy hardpoints. I have never understood why this has not been implemented. It would make varients different from one another more so, and would stop the boating.

The problem with this is that many hardpoints are located by themselves, especially in the smaller mechs. You know, single ballistic in an arm and whatnot. If that hardpoint was originally housing an AC/2 then all I could do to change things is pull that out and put in a MG. Very limiting in the smaller weight classes.

[Sybreed]

Dock Steward, on 19 June 2013 - 09:46 AM, said:

Just curious, is that your idea, or did you get it from someone else? Because it's a great one. The heat generated by going up in tonnage would be on a direct scale based on what the original weapon was and what the new weapon is and the difference between them.

Non of this randomly decide how many is okay BS. A mathematical system of deciding how much more heat is generated by putting a large laser where a medium laser was, or a PPC in that same slot. It works. Nicely.

Can we does this please?

not my idea, all the merit goes to the OP of this thread:

http://mwomercs.com/...alternate-idea/

It got very little attention unfortunately and therefore I haven't asked a dev to take a look at it... but if you like the idea, ask Garth or a mod to forward it to the devs...

I also think it's a brillant idea and I doubt the devs discussed such a system.

[Acid Phase]

Torquemada, on 01 March 2013 - 04:20 AM, said:

Hollander 35t can mount large ballistic weapons due to its specialist chassis that has to compromise on many common light mech features, Raven 35t shouldn't be able to mount large ballistic weapons, but currently does in MWO, where does it put them? These two images explain the sort of situation I want to see able to be addressed by adding the suggested feature:



Please note, this is a suggestion for how to balance hard point use, it is not advocating that every single hard point in every Mech must be restricted, merely asking if this is a suitable option to add a second layer of balancing for PGI to implement to enable some hard points to be restricted if needed.

*Edit 2* Alternative system to hard point size (slot number) restrictions for a given hard point would be maximum tonnage, have added a second part to the poll to find out which would be the preferred option as a means of balancing Mech builds for a specific hard point.

As a solution to the 'insane' and 'cheese' builds commonly referred to, perhaps combining the current hardpoint system with a maximum capacity system (similar to that used in MW4) for some slots is the solution?

To give a couple of examples:

A Commando 2D is currently capable of using 2 energy weapons in its right arm. As it stands this means you can even cram an ERPPC into a tiny Commando.... Using the alternative system I propose you still have the 2 energy hard points for the right arm, but you combine it with a maximum slots being available. There are two ways to do this, either a) a total space allocation available e.g. of 2 slots (which will prevent ERPPC's being installed) or b ) allocated 1 slot per energy point for this chassis (thus limiting energy installation to light and medium lasers only) or 2 slots enabling large lasers also to be fitted, or one hard point with 2 slots and one hardpoint with 1 slot, enabling one to mount up to a single large laser, the other restricted to medium or small.

The Stalker 3F enables a 6 PPC/ERPPC Stalker, or 'cheese' build. Now this is because it has 6 energy hardpoints, located in 2x LA, 2 x RA, LT and RT. Each location has more than six slots available so can be crammed full of ERPPC's. If my suggested system was introduced this could be restricted by also allocating a maximum capacity for one or more hardpoints. Perhaps allow up to 4 in each arm, therefore limited the Mech to a maximum of 2 x PPC's in total for arms, and e.g. 3 in the left torso (allowing for a third PPC) and only 1 slot for the right torso (maximum medium lasers). This would immediately limited the build to 3 ERPPC's and then either medium/small in all other hard points. Alternatively the same build could use up to five large lasers, two per arm and 1 in left torso.

I've had crazy builds myself, one of my favourites was my AC20 Raven 2x... It was completely wrong in every way and given even I don't think it logically made sense it probably shouldn't have been allowed. If this system of having the additional layer of slot limitation able to be added for a given hard point, it would be very easy to restrict a Raven from mounting an AC20 by putting the maximum slots able to be used below 10.

The important things to bear in mind with this suggestion are:

1) Not every hard point has to include any slot based size restrictions.
2) This system could give PGI a relatively easy way to balance Mechs if cheese builds are discovered.
3) Ultimately the system should provide balance to the force to MWO by preventing crazy builds that shouldn't really be possible e.g. a Gauss Rifle in a Commando or a 'Splatcat' with 6 x SRM 6's...
4) This doesn't mean each slot can be filled with a weapon, if a single hard points has up to 4 slots available this is still a single weapon allowed, but that weapon can be up to a size four for critical slots.

[Dock Steward]

Sybreed, on 19 June 2013 - 10:09 AM, said:

not my idea, all the merit goes to the OP of this thread:

http://mwomercs.com/...alternate-idea/

It got very little attention unfortunately and therefore I haven't asked a dev to take a look at it... but if you like the idea, ask Garth or a mod to forward it to the devs...

I also think it's a brillant idea and I doubt the devs discussed such a system.

Thanks for the suggestion, just did it.

I suggest if others like this idea, that you take the time to do the same and maybe something will come of it

[Sybreed]

Dock Steward, on 19 June 2013 - 10:13 AM, said:

Thanks for the suggestion, just did it.

I suggest if others like this idea, that you take the time to do the same and maybe something will come of it

Yup, it's honestly a very simple solution that incorporates Paul's heat penalty without it feeling so tacked on, I'm surprised no one thought about that before.

[WarRats]

If any alternate idea makes more chasis viable and cuts down on the extreme builds, then Im totaly for it.

Way back in march I was still thinking a long simaler lines.
Stock Builds thread

My idea or not I think some other change needs to occur beyond the basic weapon tweaks to make this game as fun as it can be.

I don't think Pug matches are all that unbaleneced, you get a good variety of games. But once you go up to 4 mans or 8 mans you run into an awful lot of cheese.

[Cubivorre]

WarRats, on 19 June 2013 - 05:19 AM, said:

The Solution is less customization choices.

[MaddMaxx]

tenderloving, on 19 June 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

So you insert that laugh there at the end, which indicates that you think the Awesome isn't that great. Right after you say that everything is balanced. You should probably rethink either the beginning of your post where you claim that everything is balanced, or the end of your post where you mock an underpowered mech. You can't have both.

I think his "point" was that it comes down to personal preference, despite what many will say. I have played with lots of Awesome's that had decent Pilots in them and they fared as well as any other chassis in the group.

The Awesome is not UP, although it maybe O-Sized, but it can carry enough weapons and in and of varying configuration to ruin anyone's day.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 19 June 2013 - 10:51 AM.

[GonZo626]

Dock Steward, on 19 June 2013 - 10:06 AM, said:

The problem with this is that many hardpoints are located by themselves, especially in the smaller mechs. You know, single ballistic in an arm and whatnot. If that hardpoint was originally housing an AC/2 then all I could do to change things is pull that out and put in a MG. Very limiting in the smaller weight classes.

Easy fix. Add enough hardpoints to be able to upgrade. 1mg= hardpoints for ac2, 3 med lasers=2large lasers. Solved

[Hammerfinn]

Yeah, let's take away one of the very best things about any MW game. That should be awesome.

[Dock Steward]

GonZo626, on 19 June 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

Easy fix. Add enough hardpoints to be able to upgrade. 1mg= hardpoints for ac2, 3 med lasers=2large lasers. Solved

Okay, I'll bite. How do you decide where and how many hardpoints to add?

[Acid Phase]

Hammerfinn, on 19 June 2013 - 11:12 AM, said:

Yeah, let's take away one of the very best cheap things about any MW game. That should be awesome.

By golly you're right!

[MustrumRidcully]

GonZo626, on 19 June 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

The problem with the game balancing has never been in the weapons. The problem is in the mechs themselves. Being able to shoehorn in an ac20 in a spot that should hold a MG is the stupid part. A PPC should not fit in that small laser spot. If the made there hardpoints a little more like mw4. You have 3 laser hard points in a limb that should be 3 small or med lasers, but only 1 PPC as the PPC takes 3 hardpoints to put in place. Balanced. No more stalkers running 6 PPC because they had 6 energy hardpoints. I have never understood why this has not been implemented. It would make varients different from one another more so, and would stop the boating.

Why is it so hard to understand that there are canon mechs that can carry such weapon configurations. I think the only thing not existing is the 6 PPC mech, because the clans rather use 4 ER PPCs (Clan ER PPCs deal however 15 damage per shot, and are that build would hit just as hard as the 6 PPC Stalker.)
Wonderful mechs like the Devestator, King Crab, Emperor, Annihilator...

[WarRats]

Quote

Why is it so hard to understand that there are canon mechs that can carry such weapon configurations. I think the only thing not existing is the 6 PPC mech, because the clans rather use 4 ER PPCs (Clan ER PPCs deal however 15 damage per shot, and are that build would hit just as hard as the 6 PPC Stalker.)
Wonderful mechs like the Devestator, King Crab, Emperor, Annihilator...

Because those mechs are unique. Not every mech should be able to have the same loadout.

Those mechs are also slow as dirt.

[MustrumRidcully]

WarRats, on 19 June 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

Because those mechs are unique. Not every mech should be able to have the same loadout.

Those mechs are also slow as dirt.

And the 6 PPC Stalker is fast?

And what has uniqueness to do with balance problems?

A 100 ton mech the size of a Commando would be pretty unique in MW:O, it would still not be balanced.