62 replies to this topic

[Zaptruder]

Relief to tonnage woes should be on its way via Dropship mode. 4 mechs, 200 tons, whichever is less, per player.

And hopefully their hand tweaked heat generation numbers will be enough to mitigate or curb a good deal of the massive pinpoint damage... if it isn't, then we'll have to fall back to divergence solutions.

Which in a sense is ideal, until you realize that'll just means months and months until we see relief from that kind of behaviour.

Best case scenario is dropship mode + heat scaling tweak allows the meta to improve significantly, while PGI takes action to finally solve the problem of convergence... by using some of the better divergence solutions been bandied about by the community.

Then... we might actually be able to play a game that's full of brawling/skirmishing medium mechs, with role warfare in place, where assault mechs can be rightly considered 'end bosses', and where their losses are very significant.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

I think a tonnage limit of about 250 tons per lance (i.e.: 500 tons for an 8-man team or 750 tons for a 12-man team) or 250 tons per player (if there is ever a 4-mech "drop ship mode") would bring a crazy amount of diversity to the battlefield, compared to what we're seeing today.

Edit: "250 tons" should be flexible ... if there aren't enough mediums and lights, or if everyone brings 2x CN9, 2x CTF, etc. then lower it a bit ... 200 might be the right number, but I don't think we want to go much below that.

Edited by Kageru Ikazuchi, 20 June 2013 - 09:09 PM.

[Waking One]

They need to make assaults turn much slower and heavies a bit slower if they want to make lighter stuff viable. Otherwise the superior weapons will do their thing, esp now with decent hit detection there's not much you can do.

Been running mostly fun and brawly mechs decently well but i feel like i'm on the edge of the elo thing where if i win too many games in an evening we get put into matches with too many ppcs and gauss which makes it just boring, so it's time to run even more comedy mechs to stay in a casual enough bracket. Could of course run those builds (and did a bit in the past) but it's just not an enjoyable game. :/

[Victor Morson]

HighlandCoo, on 20 June 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

Victor is actually making a very well reasoned argument, and he's doing it without yelling or being rude which is to be applauded.

However I'd say that the assumption that you are in "the high ELO" and thus are more qualified to say what makes the game fun for all - we are here for fun yes? Not as a profession? Is probably incorrect. You don't have access to your ELO score so you cannot say what it is.

Take one look at the very, very best hardcore League teams in this game right now. ELO doesn't matter as much as what they're doing, because their builds reflect the very upper tier.

I'm not basing this based on myself or my unit specifically. I am only basing my opinions on the unquestionably top ten or so teams in MW:O.

HighlandCoo, on 20 June 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

With regards to Victors points - Will it be fun? Thats the acid test for me, and my personal opinion is that I would have more fun without running into massive alpha builds. They really take away from what I think makes mech combat exciting - positioning, systems management, damage distribution and so on. Whats the answer? I have no idea, because im not a professional games designer.

Are you?

Having played a lot of lighter weight games, I can honestly say when you have a setup where the split is 50% medium, 20% scouts and 30% Heavies/Assaults the mediums control the battle. They are simply too quick and with only a couple assaults, they can't bring enough firepower around to really smash them like they could if they were the majority.

So a lot of what I'm saying about tonnage, I'm saying from actual experience trying tonnage drops in MW:O. Even the very best teams use wildly different, diverse build strategies (still around the best meta) when it works this way. This isn't conjecture or theory, it's proven fact. Ask any team in this game that is dropping with weight restrictions and I bet you hear a similar story.

And to answer your question, yes.

[Shadowsword8]

The OP is right.

The real thing favoring assaults over lighter mechs is that decent players will actually hit their target.

Balance between an assault and a medium would only happen if the medium mech could compensate his lighter armor and firepower by avoiding a signifiant amount of the assault firepower.

And in a skill-based game, that's just not happening.




Not unless you severely nerf torso twist speed on the heavy mechs, that is.

[CHWarpath]

Sybreed, on 20 June 2013 - 07:14 PM, said:

like I said in another thread: everyone picking an assault is a symptom of the convergence/high alpha issue. People pick assaults because a) they deal more damage and b ) they survive longer against said increased damage. Yes, tonnage limits are needed, but it's around 33.333% of the issue right now, the other 2/3 are convergence and the obligatory boating. In other words, fixing tonnage limits won't fix the game, but it'll improve. It still shouldn't happen that a stalker can 1-shot a blackjack and you know it's true so stop pretending your solution will fix everything.

I have to raise the BS flag on this. Much of this community is simply terrible at video games. How many scouts do you see running around with ERPPC's and silly builds like mediums and large lasers on a blackjack just so they can overheat and be wrecked in short order? TONS! A lot of this community is going for haymaker builds that cause them to overheat and die. If people learn to build consistent damage builds, they will do more damage, be more heat efficient, and able to put in bigger engines which safeguard their heatsinks and they are able to move faster.

Case in point, if you build a medium like you would an assault and think you are going to go toe to toe, you are going to get wrecked. If the person runs to the forums to complain about this obvious fact then I would have to say they are suffering from psychosis and should not be playing video games but rather seeking professional help.

Edited by CHWarpath, 20 June 2013 - 10:59 PM.

[SickerthanSars]

Sybreed, on 20 June 2013 - 07:14 PM, said:

like I said in another thread: everyone picking an assault is a symptom of the convergence/high alpha issue. People pick assaults because a) they deal more damage and b ) they survive longer against said increased damage.

Yes, tonnage limits are needed, but it's around 33.333% of the issue right now, the other 2/3 are convergence and the obligatory boating.

In other words, fixing tonnage limits won't fix the game, but it'll improve. It still shouldn't happen that a stalker can 1-shot a blackjack and you know it's true so stop pretending your solution will fix everything.

The only way Im going to 1 shot a BJ in my stalker is if I hit him in the head, which can be done with any mech not just the PPC alpha boats or he's foolish and stripped off a bunch of CT armor..get really annoyed with the over exaggerations of how powerful ppcs are or aren't

[One Medic Army]

Tonnage limits would be nice, but that'd probably just end up as lights+heavy+assaults.
Tonnage matching means that when I and a friend bring 2 mediums, we're giving the enemy both a light and a heavy.

Actual weight class limits would be nice, but let's be frank: at higher Elo levels it's going to be hard to find enough medium pilots to meet quota will be nigh impossible, just getting sufficient light pilots would be difficult going by the mix I see when I pilot an assault mech (couple lights, no meds, all PPC all the time).

Irregardless of matchmaking tricks, lowering alpha to the point where mediums no longer die in 1-2hits will be huge.
Why? Because if you can survive a few hits, you start being able to spread them out, which is the hallmark of the best players.
I had a match where I got hit by 2xAC/20s in a Blackjack I think 4 times and still survived the match, because I twisted around using my speed (295xl) and got those hits to all land on different armor sections. Lowering the amount that can be dealt all at once makes this sort of damage spreading easier, and this benefits the smaller more agile mechs more than the big lumbering targets where it's much easier to land repeated shots in the same spot.

[Zylo]

Very high team tonnage seems to be a result of a system that was designed to make this game better: the state rewind system to improve hit detection. As soon as lights and mediums lost their lag shields the only real counter to this was to increase the tonnage of mechs piloted as these players knew they would probably be hit no matter how fast they moved.

While state rewind helped deal with the OP light mech problems it created another problem when players started running only the heaviest mechs that had the best combination of firepower, armor and the smallest possible hitboxes.

I guess the question I have is this:
Are we better off having everyone running high alpha assaults and heavies or having more players running hard-to-hit lagshielded light mechs?

I actually enjoyed the game more a year ago without state rewind but with collision knockdowns providing a solid counter to lagging light mechs. I should point out that 1 year ago from the time of this post I only piloted the Atlas and Catapult.

Another issue with the high team weights is that weight class matching is not 100% exact. If matchmaking was switched back to 100% weight class matching without using Elo and matching an equal number of pre-made groups on each team, we would see far better game balance in matches than we do with the current matchmaking system.

Edited by Zylo, 21 June 2013 - 02:47 AM.

[Blackadder]

Players are shortsighted, in the extreme. All they look at is the last thing that killed them be it LRMs, or SRMs, PPCs or whatever "cheese" build i grant you that, and your right weight limits need to be put in place. however, i tend to disagree with alpha strike and heat points you raise, possibly not in the short term but both in terms of how the game plays and in the long term. All the players rage about PPC's but what happens when mechs that can go 100+ KPH hit the game, have alpha strike potential of 84 damage per round, and can sustain it for long periods of time, aka clan ER medium lasers.

There are plenty of ways to make mediums more viable, larger maps, lower damage potential to extend matches, putting flanking and movement back into the game, increased TTK which rewards higher skilled players more btw, things like this. Basically i really want PGI to put more simulation back into the game in a sensible reasonable way, that even new players can understand, along with some more viable match types so we just do not see the same thing over and over endlessly, both conquest and assault are rather predictable.

Putting in a logical heat cap, and some hard limits on damage per round is a step in the right direction, even though it wont solve the more damage playstyle most people use, it will hopefully get us away from the balance the individual weapon system that people hate most this week mentality that both the players and developers want to see happen/use.

In the long run though, without some kind of hard limits in place, which pgi seems to be unwilling to do, i am not sure how much improvement we will see.

[Kmieciu]

Perfect convergence makes 6xPPC more dangerous than 3xPPC. It makes 6xPPC Stalker that much more dangerous than a 3xPPC Hunchback. But if they both had to chainfire, that would level the field a bit.
Without convergence 5xLL Stalker would not make any sense. People would take a more diverse loadout instead.

[Bloody Moon]

Kmieciu, on 21 June 2013 - 04:22 AM, said:

Perfect convergence makes 6xPPC more dangerous than 3xPPC. It makes 6xPPC Stalker that much more dangerous than a 3xPPC Hunchback. But if they both had to chainfire, that would level the field a bit.
Without convergence 5xLL Stalker would not make any sense. People would take a more diverse loadout instead.

In capable hands a 3PPC Hunchback is already more potent than a 6PPC Stalker, not to mention 3PPC Quickdraws and sniper Cataphracts that absolutely wipe the floor with that Stalker.
There is a reason why it is very rarely used in serious competitive drops...
Please don't bring it up as an argument if you want to be taken seriously, just 'cos some new/bad players have trouble against it.

[Mercules]

Shadowsword8, on 20 June 2013 - 10:26 PM, said:

Balance between an assault and a medium would only happen if the medium mech could compensate his lighter armor and firepower by avoiding a signifiant amount of the assault firepower.

Removing Convergence does help smaller and faster mechs avoid more of that firepower. Is it the be all end all balance fix? No... but it is a step in that direction.

CHWarpath, on 20 June 2013 - 10:57 PM, said:

I have to raise the BS flag on this. Much of this community is simply terrible at video games. How many scouts do you see running around with ERPPC's

Why wouldn't I take an ERPPC on a "scout" mech?

1. Scouting means not engaging heavily. Having all Medium Lasers or shorter ranged weapons means that if I want to do any damage or after discovering the enemy disrupt them I have to close and engage with them. With an ERPPC I can do significant, can't ignore me, damage from over 800m. From nearly twice as far as the Medium Laser can even shoot I can do solid damage. This lets me find the enemy, flank them, and harass them while my team moves up.

2. PPCs counter ECM... AT RANGE. Sure I could carry a Tag, but the PPC allows me to defend myself and counter ECM. I don't even have to have an ECM capable mech or get really close. I can shoot them and target them so my team gets a blip on the radar and knows that mech is there.

3. Lasers do damage over time. While ducking and diving it is easy to hold them on a mech, but HARD to hold them on one section of a mech. With a PPC I can snap it off while moving straight for a second. Since I know when I will not be shaking around like a wildman I can accurately land a shot with that timing and not risk a shot in return. With lasers if I wanted to hold that target I would likely have to move more smoothly or in a straight path and give them a chance to line up a shot on me. Only Streaks do this as well and they don't have the advantages I mentioned up top.

4. Did I mention it doesn't run out of ammo, so even if I do nothing more than flank and drop shots into the enemy team to slow their advance or turn away from my team for a moment, I haven't "wasted" anything.

[MustrumRidcully]

I don't disagree that Heavies and Assaults will not still out-damage the lighter mechs.

But the boating and convergence problem is not just a problem for Mediums or LIghts. It's also a problem inside the Heavy and Assault Chassis itself. If you can deliver your damage in 4 second cycles with pinpoint precision, you have plenty of time to torso twist, and you will usually hit where it hurts most. If you're forced to mix weapons, you must aim them separately, which likely introduces more damage spread, and it will also give you less time for defensive actions.

But the convergence thing is also an issue for mediums or lights.If an Atlas with 2 LLs, 2 MLs, 1 AC/20 and 2 Streaks shoots at your Hunchback, t he damage will likely spread. It's still similar damage to a 4 or 6 PC volley, but it doesn't cook of your entire armour on a location. You effective have more armour in your favour against those "spreading" mechs than those that fully benefit from convergence.

[Syllogy]

Terrible at Mechwarrior? Blame the game mechanics!

[Victor Morson]

Mercules, on 21 June 2013 - 06:05 AM, said:

Why wouldn't I take an ERPPC on a "scout" mech?

You can now. Once upon a time that was a horrible idea that should never ever happen, but now it works out just fine.

[FireSlade]

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Adder_(Puma) and yet this one has two... Granted it is a clan mech but proof that they work.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

These threads are dumb. No offense Victor, but there is no end all be all one item fix.

It's going to take a bunch of things.

Stop instant convergence (give us a reason to take Pinpoint).

Lower heat cap.

Increase heat dissipation.

Add penalties for high heat, including damage when over 100% and explosion if you get to 150%.

I think weight matching could be better.

Tonnage limits are good too.

I personally also think that the hard-point system should be looked at.

But no one thing totally fixes things.

Oh and throw in dynamic drop points, dynamic spawn points, and attack/defense style scenarios to create a reason for recon and faster style mechs like mediums.

You know what, I'm also going to throw in that the art department needs to go back and look at mech sizes and hit boxes for EVERY mech.

And should stop releasing mechs that are 60 tons as tall as assaults.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 21 June 2013 - 04:13 PM.

[M a r c u s G i o a v a n t i]

i think what the OP suggested is valid

IF there is an even distribution of players using light/medium/heavy and assault mechs.


If there isn't (i.e. there are more players using assault), then it can't be done.

There will always be a game wherein majority will be assault mechs

[East Indy]

Victor Morson, on 20 June 2013 - 07:07 PM, said:

Next time you're about to scream about alpha strikes or heat, think to yourself would these things really be a problem if 60% of the force on the field were mediums or light heavies? Do you really have a problem with alphas from a Centurion, Hunchback or Dragon? Do they really need convergence reduced and alpha heat increased?

Yes and no, actually.

Players like simplicity and efficiency. This game currently rewards that by allowing multiple weapons to fire simultaneously as a mega-weapon with few limitations and no obvious, comprehensive disadvantages.

Scale is important, because the legitimate issue you're discussing (everybody and his brother gets their 'Mech from the big-and-tall) paints the clearest picture: with the amount of general firepower in a match, 'Mechs that are either focused, low-weight or both fall very quickly. Alpha-convergence is a factor, but a stock 70-100 is still just as significant.

However, if and when PGI enforces weight limits, so light and medium 'Mechs consist of 80 percent of a team, focus will shift immediately and accurately back to alpha-convergence — because 4, 6, or 8 medium lasers et. al hitting as one matters to the under-60 weight group.

(Disclosure: I run a Jenner and use fire groups, kept in check by my slovenly aim, but still would prefer changes moderating convergence.)