30 replies to this topic

[Dudeman3k]

You know its bad when you need to mount 3 PPC and an XL 295 on your Treb to be any sort of a player. 15 missile tubes for looks maybe?

I feel the pin-point High alpha needs to be addressed yet again. It's like an AWP only game style... but you can still run and gun with the same effect.

please PGI, look into rewarding multiple weapon systems. The damage to internals is moot in a game where 2 alphas will end you anyways, what were you trying to say implementing that?

[Lootee]

Saying 'Derp' I think?

[Ryvucz]

I feel that if they stop rewarding and praising high damages for tournaments, match scores, C-bills and XP.

Then high damage alpha builds might go away.

[Roland]

Ryvucz, on 02 July 2013 - 07:11 PM, said:

I feel that if they stop rewarding and praising high damages for tournaments, match scores, C-bills and XP.

Then high damage alpha builds might go away.

No, they wouldn't.

High damage alpha builds are the most effective way to kill mechs.

Thus, they are going to dominate the game forever, until this stops being the case.

In reality, they've dominated the game throughout the history of mechwarrior, including the entirety of MWO's existence.. it was simply the case that the steering wheel underhive was unaware of this simple truth until it trickled all the way down into the basement and they got to see it first hand.

[Ruccus]

The only thing that comes to mind for me is to give mechs a 'heat threshold' in which the different mech classes could only generate a certain amount of heat at once before there's a chance of frying the electronics. Just going by arbitrary numbers a light mech might be able to cope with 20 heat, a medium 25, a heavy 30, and an assault 35. Once it gets more than that you start having the chance of an electronics failure where the cockpit will shut down when you try to fire, forcing you to reboot the electronics.

[Dudeman3k]

I just got done reading Pauls post on him "being aware of the high alpha meta"... but I'm sceptical on how he wants to fix it.... truth be told, I dont mind the high alpha's so long as they must be slowed down or stopped to get the 100% accuracy as they do now even at 100% throttle.

Hypothetically, if ridicule shake took effect on movement, a high alpha build Jagar would need to throttle down to about 40% to get a good shot on a faster moving mech, meaning hes now open to incoming LRM's, hell, even full burn medium lasers!

I believe the issue is the ability to strike reliably at any speed that is making the AWP matches in CS. when was the AWP at it's strongest/weakest?? it was when he was standing completely still to get that pin point shot.... I believe we can keep the current mech bay customization, if they introduced a working and reasonable movement to fire penalty.

[Steel Claws]

Increase the number of crit spaces that PPCs take to 4 or even 5. Bump large lasers to 3. Of course that might break some stock builds. The current attempt failed completely.The biggest problems I see is the Stalkers. They have far too much going for them. You can boat it six ways to Sunday. It has far more slots than any other mech in the game which would be fine if they were energy slots you could only put small weapons in. Maybe limit the number of large weapons that can be loaded in a torso/arm to one or only allow weapons like PPC, Large lasers, Guass, and any AC over AC10 to weapons pods and arms or by stock chassis loadout. Let people customize but simply limit what can be put in a torso. Don't let someone pull out a medium laser and stick a PPC in it.

Edited by Steel Claws, 02 July 2013 - 08:14 PM.

[Hythos]

Stock builds (from Battletech) have a mix of weapons and a 'balanced' load-out because of weapon ineffective convergence (IE, damage spread from random locations).
We know that jumping makes weapons fire erratically. Any movement causing a similar spread would balance all weapons, and low-skill pilots.

The reason why alpha-strikes are superior is because of simplicity; having stock builds are not as efficient by having multiple weapons groups+ranges. Mixed weapons here (ie, balanced load-outs) are less effective because of NOT using all weapons (and effective tonnage) for chosen ranges. Between having weapons capable of varied ranges or having major minimum range, which should people take? Then, why should anyone vary weaponry?
This is why people 'boat' weapons; this is why people Alpha. But it's far from the most effective.

The way to balance combat now, is to implement random hits for all shots (modified by attacker movement.)
The current aiming mechanism should be reserved for Targetting Computers and their precision (hit where you want).

[Sephlock]

Glazed armor.

[Ningyo]

The most common method suggested to deal with this is to change convergence see
http://mwomercs.com/...48-convergence/ it has links to some other major threads on it too.

The second most common is probably Heat penalties, and or reduction of heat threshold. This would affect, though not remove it especially for ballistic weapons. There are also many threads on this. And this is likely a good idea even though it only has a minor affect on alpha striking, as it will make it easier to balance the ammo free energy weapons against the heavier ammo driven ballistic and missile weapons.

The third really common method is limiting hardpoints to certain sizes of weapons so you could maybe take out a LL and replace it with a PPC, but not take out a ML and replace it with a PPC.

EDIT: True Zyrusticae forgot that.
make weapons do there damage in smaller units either by turning PPCs into something more like lasers with a beam duration. Or giving them spread damage to multiple parts. For ballistics changing the RoF or making them fire a bullet stream instead of a single projectile with each round doing lower damage. (note that the present AC/2 according to TT rules is a TT AC/20 once you account for the doubled armor values (it does 20 damage over 10 seconds if you adjust damage for armor values).


You will find dozens of threads on each of these methods if you browse through the first 5 or so pages on this forum.

Edited by Ningyo, 02 July 2013 - 09:00 PM.

[Rahnu]

Ningyo got most of them, but there's a fourth, alternative method - make all the high-alpha weapons do damage over time like lasers. For example, there was one suggestion where the PPC does 5 damage at the front of the beam and then increments of 1 over the rest of it. Similarly, there are suggestions to make the AC/20 fire multiple slugs of 5 or 10 damage instead of a single large slug. These changes would go a long way to reducing the effectiveness of high-alpha boats and wouldn't even require drastic changes to implement.

(I personally don't think Gauss rifles are a problem and can stay the way they are, but others may disagree.)

Edited by Zyrusticae, 02 July 2013 - 08:44 PM.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

Yes!
Allowing mechs to only equip "X" amount of any one weapon.
For example:
SL/MG :8
ML/MPL 4-6
LL/LPS 3-4
PPC/AC 2

No more one shotting a fully armored mech from across the map with your 6 ER ppc/6 ERLL and be so far away you cant be targeted then have the time to cool down befor doing it again.

Edited by Funkadelic Mayhem, 02 July 2013 - 08:51 PM.

[Steel Claws]

Hythos, on 02 July 2013 - 08:19 PM, said:

Stock builds (from Battletech) have a mix of weapons and a 'balanced' load-out because of weapon ineffective convergence (IE, damage spread from random locations).
We know that jumping makes weapons fire erratically. Any movement causing a similar spread would balance all weapons, and low-skill pilots.

The reason why alpha-strikes are superior is because of simplicity; having stock builds are not as efficient by having multiple weapons groups+ranges. Mixed weapons here (ie, balanced load-outs) are less effective because of NOT using all weapons (and effective tonnage) for chosen ranges. Between having weapons capable of varied ranges or having major minimum range, which should people take? Then, why should anyone vary weaponry?
This is why people 'boat' weapons; this is why people Alpha. But it's far from the most effective.

The way to balance combat now, is to implement random hits for all shots (modified by attacker movement.)
The current aiming mechanism should be reserved for Targetting Computers and their precision (hit where you want).

If you want people to quit in droves, this would be a good way to do it. I already hear people raged about no registered damage on shots that should hit, make hits random and you loose half the player base that's left. This is NOT table top, You have to make it fun and reward skill. This game is already dumbed down beyond belief and that is what is absolutely killing the player base.

[Lykaon]

Steel Claws, on 02 July 2013 - 07:51 PM, said:

Increase the number of crit spaces that PPCs take to 4 or even 5. Bump large lasers to 3. Of course that might break some stock builds. The current attempt failed completely.

You are looking at this kinda backwards but you are onto something.

It's not PPCs or Large Lasers it's the ability to replace a small laser with a PPC and a MG with an AC20.

The issue isn't how much space a PPC takes it's how much space a hard point can hold.Currently a hardpoint space is equal to all available space in the location the hardpoint is mounted in.

If instead a hard point had a cap on the critical spaces it can accommodate then the hardpoints themselves could be used as a means of preventing high alpha builds.

If a Stalker that has six energy hardpoints only had 2 that could fit a PPC then would we have high alpha stalkers?

If for example a Stalker had these limits.

Head: no hardpoint.

CT: no hardpoint

RT/LT: 1 energy hardpoint with 2 max crits allowed
1 energy hardpoint with 1 max crits allowed
1 missile hardpoint with 3 max crits allowed

RA/LA:1 energy hardpoint with 3 max crits allowed
1 missile hardpoint with 6 max crits allowed

RL/LL: no hardpoints

How much pinpoint alpha damage could this mech put out? 2 PPCs not to bad,or maybe 4x large lasers or 6x mediums but no pinpoint damage since lasers are not all front loaded damage. 4x srm 6 ? no pinpoint damage there same for LRM boating.

Even with these limitations this hypothetical stalker could be configured into many different weapon platforms allowing for diversity in design and preserving customization (all be it with some limits to prevent exploiting game design choices)

This is far less intensive an alteration than reworking convergence or heat/heat related damage.(although honestly I think a combination of convergence and hardpoint limits are the best fix)

[Mister Blastman]

Just stop playing. That's the fastest way to send PGI a message. The more that do it, the sooner they'll get the picture.

[KharnZor]

Limit the space for hardpoints.

Edited by KharnZor, 02 July 2013 - 09:32 PM.

[dario03]

I've said this in a couple threads over the last week but I would rather we had a maximum amount of crits be allowed per weapon class. Or add something else like power draw and assign every weapon a certain amount of draw and each mech/engine a amount of power (possibly have both affect the power).

That way stock builds wouldn't have to be affected much (probably could do it so none are at all), every mech could still run every weapon (assuming it has the hardpoints), hardpoints wouldn't need to be lowered. So for example you could still have stalkers with 6 energy harpoints but lets say it can only use 10 crits for those weapons. They could carry 6ml if they want or 5LL, or 3ppc and 1ml but they wouldn't be able to carry 6LL or 4ppc, Or add in the power draw system (or call it whatever) and tweak those numbers to get different limits.

Could help balance some mechs out too, for example maybe do something like let the awesome have more energy potential than the stalker. Something ike a 300 engine gives 300 power and the awesome has a 1.2 multiplier and the stalker just 1x. I think something like that could help the balance and give some more variety because if done right you would have to make more sacrifices and everybody might not pick the same ones.

Edited by dario03, 02 July 2013 - 10:05 PM.

[Dephylr]

The only way to win is not to play. Perhaps there is logic in that for those who truly are having a tough time with big alphas?

[MustrumRidcully]

dario03, on 02 July 2013 - 10:00 PM, said:

I've said this in a couple threads over the last week but I would rather we had a maximum amount of crits be allowed per weapon class. Or add something else like power draw and assign every weapon a certain amount of draw and each mech/engine a amount of power (possibly have both affect the power).

That way stock builds wouldn't have to be affected much (probably could do it so none are at all), every mech could still run every weapon (assuming it has the hardpoints), hardpoints wouldn't need to be lowered. So for example you could still have stalkers with 6 energy harpoints but lets say it can only use 10 crits for those weapons. They could carry 6ml if they want or 5LL, or 3ppc and 1ml but they wouldn't be able to carry 6LL or 4ppc, Or add in the power draw system (or call it whatever) and tweak those numbers to get different limits.

Could help balance some mechs out too, for example maybe do something like let the awesome have more energy potential than the stalker. Something ike a 300 engine gives 300 power and the awesome has a 1.2 multiplier and the stalker just 1x. I think something like that could help the balance and give some more variety because if done right you would have to make more sacrifices and everybody might not pick the same ones.

The problem with any hardpoint relation suggestions is that there are now stock mechs that boat weapons (but not necessariyl PPCs), and there are a lot of interesting candidates for future mechs that do boat weapons.

Canon has it all. LRM boats. PPC boats. Gauss Rifle Boats. AC/20 Boats. Ultra AC/20 boats. Not all of them are equally... "practical", but there are enough for it that avoiding them will probably disappoint a lot of franchise fans, and adding them just gets the min/maxers to take these mechs and we're all back into alpha-boat land again.

The combination of convergence and group fire needs to be limited if you want to deal with this problem. Be it cone of fire, no convergence, deliberately imperfect convergence, disallowing group-firing all together, creating some targeting computer processing power subsystem, whatever.

[dario03]

MustrumRidcully, on 02 July 2013 - 10:17 PM, said:

The problem with any hardpoint relation suggestions is that there are now stock mechs that boat weapons (but not necessariyl PPCs), and there are a lot of interesting candidates for future mechs that do boat weapons.

Canon has it all. LRM boats. PPC boats. Gauss Rifle Boats. AC/20 Boats. Ultra AC/20 boats. Not all of them are equally... "practical", but there are enough for it that avoiding them will probably disappoint a lot of franchise fans, and adding them just gets the min/maxers to take these mechs and we're all back into alpha-boat land again.

The combination of convergence and group fire needs to be limited if you want to deal with this problem. Be it cone of fire, no convergence, deliberately imperfect convergence, disallowing group-firing all together, creating some targeting computer processing power subsystem, whatever.

Yeah and I figured on that but I don't know the stock mechs well enough to know how much they boated. But was there any mechs in this time frame that had 6ppc on them? And would we have to have those exact variants? But basically I was thinking this could be something that could be used as just part of balance. Like in the example I used of the Stalker and Awesome, it could be set up so that the Awesome could run 3 or 4 ppc and the stalker could be limited to 2 or 3 but it has the advantage of not having a giant CT.