32 replies to this topic

[Ozasuke]

Before I start, I have just a quick thought regarding the recent changes to heat management in dealing damage after 120% heat: I don't see it as a 'fix' to something like a PPC Stalker. I'm surprised it took this long to implement something that makes sense for diminishing returns in massive overheating, but--intended or otherwise--it's not a 'solution' to ridiculous boating.

While I disagree with the current plan to penalize firing more than 6 lasers on a Hunchback (for example), I do agree with scoping hardpoints to match with their intended housing.

I'm proposing we add 'tiers' for each weapon hardpoint category: ballistics, energy, and missile. Tiers can be thought of as size. The weapon housing for the laser Hunchback would need to be torn out to appropriately fit one or more PPCs. That--in itself--will create a new variant. It's not an omnimech, so this doesn't make sense if the variant's intent is to carry an array of lasers.

Higher tiers can house lower tiers but lower tiers cannot house higher tiers. Classify laser-based energy weapons as Tier 1 or E1, which leaves PPCs as Tier 2 or E2. Instead of a Cataphract having two energy hardpoints in its right arm, it'll have one E1 and one E2. It can fit a laser and PPC or two lasers.

I'll leave it up to the community to pick this apart and suggest ideas as to how each hardpoint category can be tiered, but I strongly feel having just two tiers per type is ideal.

Cheers,
Oz

[Antonio]

And when the Warhawk comes out with 4 CERPPCs that Stalker with all of its E1 Hardpoints will look like a joke so this does not change anything in the long run. But I do like the idea of sized hardpoints as a way to give variants 'quirks".

[GODzillaGSPB]

Antonio, on 02 July 2013 - 11:02 PM, said:

And when the Warhawk comes out with 4 CERPPCs that Stalker with all of its E1 Hardpoints will look like a joke so this does not change anything in the long run. But I do like the idea of sized hardpoints as a way to give variants 'quirks".

Pretty much. What can the Stalker do? Sure, it could fire it's medium lasers, srms, lrms and large lasers...but against 4 ppcs? No chance, right? Plus it's definitely benefitial when all mechs more or less carry the same stuff. 4 ppc Stalker, 4 ppc Warhawk, 4 ppc [insert mech here].

[Lykaon]

I wouldn't even make it that complex or restrictive.

Any given hardpoint should have two characteristics.

It's type,ie. Energy,Ballistic,Missile or Omni

And it's maximum critical space available to fit a weapon.

An example Stalker may have a hardpoint layout as follows.

Head: No Hardpoints

CT: No Hardpoints

RT/LT: 1 Missile Hardpoint with 4 max critical spaces
1 Energy Hardpoint with 2 max critical spaces

RA/LA: 1 Energy Hardpoint with 3 max critical spaces
1 Energy Hardpoint with 1 max critical spaces
1 Missile Hardpoint with 6 max critical spaces

RL/LL: No Hardpoints

This leaves plenty of available customization options but none of them allow for more than 2 PPCs or ER-PPCs.

You could make an LRM boat with 2 Artemis LRM20s and 2 Artemis LRM10s with TAG and 3 medium lasers.This is a formidable long range platform but it will not lay out 40+ damage to one spot in under a second.

You could opt for 2 large lasers 4 medium lasers and 4 Artemis SRM6s also a potent build but incapable of precision spike damage.

If you want a surgical mid range mech you could go with 4 large lasers

There are plenty of variables to customize this mech but the Hardpoints are restrictive enough to prevent Alpha Boating direct fire and pinpoint accurate weapons.

But what about those mechs that do have 4 PPCs? Like a Clan Warhawk (Massakari)

This mech would retain the ability to boat 4 PPCs if desired but the design team can limit the impact this has by giving this Warhawk some chassis specific characteristics that balance this out.Slower or more limited torso rotations,Limited arm pitch angles or arcs etc.

By addressing Hardpoints directly we allow for specific mech chassis and variants to be balanced via use of hardpoint size restictions and quirks.This type of mechanic will allow for direct manipulation of specific mech variants rather than create a mechanic that applies broadly and possibly becoming overly restrictive to unintended mechs.

[Raso]

Lykaon, on 03 July 2013 - 03:49 AM, said:

I wouldn't even make it that complex or restrictive.

Any given hardpoint should have two characteristics.

It's type,ie. Energy,Ballistic,Missile or Omni

And it's maximum critical space available to fit a weapon.

I actually like this idea the best. Doing this you can easily restrict PPCs but also leave large lasers and large pulse lasers available as viable options. It's not that far off from MW4, mind you, so we would need to tune it so that it's either harder to boat dual PPCs or so that it's more worth it to load up on multiple weapon systems. The tiers idea isn't terrible, but this one is nice and simple.

All of this, however, needs to be done along side a reworked heat scale and some minor changes to convergence.

[Ozasuke]

Lykaon, on 03 July 2013 - 03:49 AM, said:

I wouldn't even make it that complex or restrictive.

Any given hardpoint should have two characteristics.

It's type,ie. Energy,Ballistic,Missile or Omni

And it's maximum critical space available to fit a weapon.

I like this idea, too. It's simpler but just as restrictive based on the chassis/variant's intent on weapon housing. Ship it!

[Dephylr]

Not the worst idea but i reckon it is too complex for pgi to implement.

[Jestun]

This is suggested frequently.

And it's one of the few topics where I'm glad PGI seems to ignore them, because I think it's an awful idea.

Have you even considered how many non-OP builds would be destroyed because of this?

[GODzillaGSPB]

Jestun, on 03 July 2013 - 08:05 AM, said:

This is suggested frequently.

And it's one of the few topics where I'm glad PGI seems to ignore them, because I think it's an awful idea.

Have you even considered how many non-OP builds would be destroyed because of this?

How did MechWarrior and BattleTech even function with stock-builds all the years, right? It's almost unbelievable.

And to think we could not make builds that do double the damage, are faster, better armored and twice as heat efficient is a horrible, horrible thought. This wont be MWO anymore. It would still be MechWarrior, but not MWO!

Edited by GODzillaGSPB, 03 July 2013 - 08:12 AM.

[Jestun]

GODzillaGSPB, on 03 July 2013 - 08:11 AM, said:

How did MechWarrior and BattleTech even function with stock-builds all the years, right? It's almost unbelievable.

And to think we could not make builds that do double the damage, are faster, better armored and twice as heat efficient is a horrible, horrible thought. This wont be MWO anymore. It would still be MechWarrior, but not MWO!

Thanks for your insight, but I fail to see what it has to do with my quoted post.

[mania3c]

GODzillaGSPB, on 03 July 2013 - 08:11 AM, said:

How did MechWarrior and BattleTech even function with stock-builds all the years, right? It's almost unbelievable.

And to think we could not make builds that do double the damage, are faster, better armored and twice as heat efficient is a horrible, horrible thought. This wont be MWO anymore. It would still be MechWarrior, but not MWO!

I am not against more variety or quirks and differences between mechs..but I just don't like this idea.. It won't fix damn thing in long run..it would remove something what is really fun about this game..customization..

If people want play stock variants only matches..I am all for it..give it to players.. but for god sake..don't change something for wrong reason..

[GODzillaGSPB]

Jestun, on 03 July 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

Thanks for your insight, but I fail to see what it has to do with my quoted post.

Because the liberal hardpoint system cannot divide between non-op and op builds. You can either make is less liberal for everyone or not at all. From your post I thought you'd be more the "not at all" type. I'm the former. Less liberal.

Yes, even my own builds would more likely to be affected by this, some may even only hardly better than their stock variant, but...you know what the guys in defense of cheesebuilds usually say? Adapt and overcome.

[Jestun]

GODzillaGSPB, on 03 July 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

Because the liberal hardpoint system cannot divide between non-op and op builds. You can either make is less liberal for everyone or not at all. From your post I thought you'd be more the "not at all" type. I'm the former. Less liberal.

The only time this would matter is if hardpoints were the only possible thing that could be changed.

This is not the case, they can improve the balance by making changes not related to the hardpoints.

[GODzillaGSPB]

Jestun, on 03 July 2013 - 08:35 AM, said:

The only time this would matter is if hardpoints were the only possible thing that could be changed.

This is not the case, they can improve the balance by making changes not related to the hardpoints.

They can. But what has it done to ppcs for instance? How many weeks have they ruled now? Or the Stalker to be the best LRM boat (should be the Catapult), or the best PPC-boat (should be the Awesome), or the best laser-boat...because there are no limits to hardpoints. Is that supposed to be or just a symptome of the liberal hardpoint system? I believe PGI fell victim to their desire for maximum customization. And I can even understand why. Appeal to the masses...

[HansBlix WMD]

GODzillaGSPB, on 03 July 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

Because the liberal hardpoint system cannot divide between non-op and op builds. You can either make is less liberal for everyone or not at all. From your post I thought you'd be more the "not at all" type. I'm the former. Less liberal.

Yes, even my own builds would more likely to be affected by this, some may even only hardly better than their stock variant, but...you know what the guys in defense of cheesebuilds usually say? Adapt and overcome.

Damn liberals and their fully customizable hardpoints...

[Jestun]

GODzillaGSPB, on 03 July 2013 - 08:43 AM, said:

They can. But what has it done to ppcs for instance? How many weeks have they ruled now? Or the Stalker to be the best LRM boat (should be the Catapult), or the best PPC-boat (should be the Awesome), or the best laser-boat...because there are no limits to hardpoints. Is that supposed to be or just a symptome of the liberal hardpoint system? I believe PGI fell victim to their desire for maximum customization. And I can even understand why. Appeal to the masses...

The fact that they have not solved all balance problems is in no way proof that the only way to resolve them is by limiting every mechs hardpoints.

And it wouldn't work anyway. If they change it so that Awesomes are the PPC boat capable mech then all that will happen is the FotM build will change from 4 PPC Stalker to 4 PPC Awesome.

The proposed solution does "solve" PPC boating, but it does nerf various other non-OP builds.

[Endarius]

Why not just make PPCs and MG's their own category? I think that would fix alot of the hardpoint dilemas right there.

Edited by Endarius, 03 July 2013 - 08:56 AM.

[Jonny Taco]

Antonio, on 02 July 2013 - 11:02 PM, said:

And when the Warhawk comes out with 4 CERPPCs that Stalker with all of its E1 Hardpoints will look like a joke so this does not change anything in the long run. But I do like the idea of sized hardpoints as a way to give variants 'quirks".

Here's a novel idea, don't use clan TT dmg values for clan er ppcs (omg no!!! my TT rules!!!)... Or you could, you know, NOT introduce mechs that will obviously **** up overall gameplay balance...

It's really, really, really, not a very hard concept to grasp.

[FupDup]

lartfor, on 03 July 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

Here's a novel idea, don't use clan TT dmg values for clan er ppcs (omg no!!! my TT rules!!!)... Or you could, you know, NOT introduce mechs that will obviously **** up overall gameplay balance...

It's really, really, really, not a very hard concept to grasp.

On a side note, we've already defied TT damage rules for the Flamer, MG, LL, LPL, SPL, LRM, SRM, and SSRM.

[Sprouticus]

Various people on the forums have suggested this going back to March of last year, pre-closed beta. PGI has repeatedly shown ZERO interest in such a system (in spite of the value)

So we have to assume that they are not going to implement any such system and work within what we have.