158 replies to this topic

[Foxfire]

The tweek is to take the weight bias out of it and base it purely on equipment.

[Chemie]

yes because rearming those PPCs is expensive

[Foxfire]

Chemie, on 07 July 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

yes because rearming those PPCs is expensive

Repairing them can be.

Compare the cost of PPC and gauss to light lasers and the such.

[BootHands]

Foxfire, on 07 July 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

It would bring much more parody to the weight classes and make it less likely people will fiend expensive equipment if they had to pay a significant chunk of money each time they lost it.

Cost is what made the medium the workhorse of armies in the Battletech universe.. and the lack of costs is what makes this game armor heavy.

Lets face it.. the PPC and gauss need to be useful for people to use it.. but it isn't punishing enough for people who use them which is why you see people stocking up on PPC's and guass. These things(like XL engines) are supposed to be prohibitively expensive to use which is why they were reserved for elite groups.

Make them so again.

The PPC and guass should be powerful... just make it a real tradeoff to use them.

This idea is worse than communism. There is nothing fun about getting queued into a team with people who did not fully repair/reload. It was a big, unfair hinderance on your chances of winning that had nothing to do with your choices or skill, but still reduced your chances of winning, and more often than not caused you to get stuck with a big repair bill when your team got facerolled.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Instead of bring back R&R as it was; what about cutting C-bill earnings for Assaults in half, and one third for Heavies, to simulate the expense to run them?

[DarkJaguar]

Praetor Shepard, on 07 July 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

Instead of bring back R&R as it was; what about cutting C-bill earnings for Assaults in half, and one third for Heavies, to simulate the expense to run them?

I like the idea of your "return" being lessened by the weight class you bring.

[stjobe]

MustrumRidcully, on 07 July 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

Since you've been proven to be one of the smarter posters (IMO at least) - feel free to come up with a non-exploitable and non-griefing system. Cover problems like new players without any money yet, and people going bankrupt.

Though I think it's kinda the type of idea I dislike about mech customization limitations - it it stops me from making the mechs I would like to play, or force me to leave it in the garage, I am not sure the game has the same appeal. Trying out new builds whenever I want has a big appeal to me.

Thanks for the compliment; sadly I think I must leave you disappointed (which I'm sure you were counting on).

I think the issue actually comes all the way back to some basic choices PGI made a very long time ago; choices that these days seem more and more questionable. I'm talking about the very core of the game: Keeping TT values for some things and discarding them for other things; tripling rate of fire while keeping damage and heat values, and the heat system adjustments this caused. Basic core mechanics that are quite broken.

Why is this relevant to a discussion on R&R? Well, because those decisions ultimately is what's making stock 'mechs unplayable - and without stock 'mechs there's really no fallback if there's an R&R system, and neither is the game very welcoming for new players. If the stock 'mechs were viable, there wouldn't be such an uproar against an R&R system.

Alas, last I heard, they're actually planning to scrap the trial system completely. Such a shame.

Also, I believe the reward system plays a good part in it as well; it needs to be large enough rewards that you can get the 'mechs you want in a reasonable amount of grind, but that also means the proper TT values for R&R will be either insignificant or way to much. The reward system needs to fill several needs, and it's currently not set up for that. It's low-reward for new players in their trial 'mechs or non-upgraded 'mechs, and it's inconsequential once you've gotten a few 'mechs you like.

It sounds like a R&R system is impossible, but I don't think it is. It just needs a lot of adjustments in all parts of the game to work - and personally I hope it makes a comeback in CW.

[Foxfire]

BootHands, on 07 July 2013 - 12:28 PM, said:

This idea is worse than communism. There is nothing fun about getting queued into a team with people who did not fully repair/reload. It was a big, unfair hinderance on your chances of winning that had nothing to do with your choices or skill, but still reduced your chances of winning, and more often than not caused you to get stuck with a big repair bill when your team got facerolled.

Almost as fun as dropping with nothing but a bunch of snipers...

The current game simply isn't fun. Something has to change... I don't care if it is R&R but the curren't game is destined to die horribly in animosity.

[Rasako]

Kibble, on 07 July 2013 - 11:28 AM, said:

PGI is gonna do what PGI wants. It's been shown time and time again. I love developers that do their own things basied on their vision but when their vision is crap then the outcome is crap.

I would love to see R&R come back.

you're alone in that sentiment, R&R is a **** system and only limits casual players from even playing the game, hardcore players aren't even phased by it due to making 200k+ cbills on average in a match from hero mech bonuses and premium time

[Purlana]

stjobe, on 07 July 2013 - 12:14 PM, said:

It wasn't very thought-through, though, so it needed to be adjusted. Refined, rebalanced, tuned so as to not encourage griefing or exploiting.

PGI took the easy way out and just removed it.

R&R was pointless back in the day. All it did was reward the organized groups and punished the new players (And LRM and SRM boats, boy those LRM and SRMs where expensive). Oh and we had all those lovely people who did not repair / rearm or suicided.

Edited by Purlana, 07 July 2013 - 01:07 PM.

[BootHands]

Foxfire, on 07 July 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

Almost as fun as dropping with nothing but a bunch of snipers...

The current game simply isn't fun. Something has to change... I don't care if it is R&R but the curren't game is destined to die horribly in animosity.

Putting in R&R costs won't keep people from playing snipers, it'll probably make snipers more common, as those are the builds which do well right now. All adding R&R will do is reinforce the meta, by heavily punishing people who try new things, when their new builds fail (like the overwhelming majority do).

It'll kill the game for casual players.

[Solis Obscuri]

stjobe, on 07 July 2013 - 12:14 PM, said:

A lot of people enjoyed R&R, including me.

It wasn't very thought-through, though, so it needed to be adjusted. Refined, rebalanced, tuned so as to not encourage griefing or exploiting.

PGI took the easy way out and just removed it.

Pretty much. I liked the idea behind R&R but there were some parts that were exploited.

[Kobold]

REMINDER: Economics never balances game play.

[Foxfire]

It sure as hell helps, if used right, though.

[Inkarnus]

Economics do balance game play if the OP abuser needs to pay his stuff wich atm nobody
must. Think about if you die and need to repair around 50% of your mech (18,980,445 poptart )
oh that XL poptart would shed tears in masses.
Dont you remember the QQ of streak cat runners that there ammo was too high?
RandR puts ppl to not use XLs gauss ppc and all other lostech all the time
you could actually see more fair mechbuilds build for efficiency
running mostly stock mechs and alot less assault mechs !!!!!

Trials werent that bad back then
but now they are even more utter bs!


RandR solves 3 issues
Players play to win the match and dont die
Players dont take always the heavyst mech ever
Players dont take everytime 3xPPC Gaus

Pointing at RandR and saying it is bad
because PGI implementet it halfway done
and pointing out that its Broken
because its obviously not fixed is just duuh.
Alot of the stuff you could do back then
isnt possible anymore too.


you could drive a pretty good med and still
get alot of CBills on a loss
but you couldnt drive that omnomnom
Atlas gauss ppc streak monster
and archieve an income that outwhight
your dead or even sometimes your
ammo and armor repair.



TL:DR
RandR =
balanced MM more lights meds than heavys/assaults,
less focus on Highalphabuilds and even if in the minority
lostech is a malus if you die eating up your earnings
Players play more intelligent to prevent losses deads

Edited by Inkarnus, 07 July 2013 - 02:33 PM.

[Foxfire]

Honestly, the biggest complaint about R&R was that it punished assaults more.. if they adjusted it to be equipment based and not armor based, then that would still allow players to play the class they wanted to withut overly penalizing those who run assaults... and being equipment based, they would benefit those who build 'standard' mechs more than those who build 'OMG' 6 PPC stalkers more.

Combine this with buffs to brawling weapons(srm's and the such to make them viable against ERPPC builds) and suddenly you find things a bit more balanced since ERPPC builds can no longer roflestomp brawler builds.

[Inkarnus]

Rasako, on 07 July 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

you're alone in that sentiment, R&R is a **** system and only limits casual players from even playing the game, hardcore players aren't even phased by it due to making 200k+ cbills on average in a match from hero mech bonuses and premium time

I dont see your point there we have ELO now
it should keep you even if it is Casual or Pro
how does it stop players playing the game?

It promots stock casual configs
the so called Pros will always get more
since they play more now or back then
They will still roflstomp you be it now or back than.

But with RandR and you had driven
a balanced load out back then
you still got alot more than the mesely 40k-60k
you get now for losing wich feels
like a slap in the face
in comparison of driving a light
getting 125k -20k rep costs

Edited by Inkarnus, 07 July 2013 - 04:44 PM.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

The original way PGI implemented R&R, it was very borken (Whoa, surprise surprise)


If anything, it should just be repairs. Rearm only hurt ammo users.

[oldradagast]

Any mechanism that discourages people from playing the game is a bad one.

I didn't play during Repair and Rearm, and, if I had, I probably would have quit before spending any money on the game.

There were situations were people came out of a match owing money. What fun is that? What good is a mechanic that actually discourages play because the player would literally be better off if he or she had never played that game? One can argue "realism" all one wants, but we're currently fighting wars in nicely packaged 8 on 8 teams in terrain that seems oddly arena-like... so realism is already gone in our giant stompy robot game.

I also hate the whole notion that only "better" or "more experience" pilots should be able to pilot larger mechs, be it by punishing newer or less-skilled players with fees or by just flat out forcing people to start with light mechs.

First, not everyone likes light mechs or can pilot them well - me, I find it rather dizzying to spectate on them when moving at 150 kph, so I'd probably be next to useless trying to pilot them at those speeds.

Second, if lighter mechs are not as fun or effective to play, why should newer or less skilled players be banished to them? What's to then encourage them to keep playing or improve their skills? Nothing at all.

If they want all mechs to be represented, all mechs should be able to contribute and be fun to play. Flat-out admitting, "yeah, these mechs are junk, but that's all you can afford / deserve to play." is a terrible solution that doesn't fix anything. The better players with high-alpha builds will simply blow everyone else out of the water, and then you'll get a nice, fat repair bill as a "reward" for getting creamed by 4 PPC's and a Gauss Rifle. Nobody will stick around and play a "fun" game like that, IMHO.

Edited by oldradagast, 07 July 2013 - 04:57 PM.

[Foxfire]

A lot of people aren't sticking around for the current game, either.

As is, the game simply isn't fun... be it on the receiving or giving in. There is no fun or tactic in the current game and no encouragement to do anything but to min/max the maximum number of PPC's and gausses that you can squeeze onto a chassis.

Once it get to the point that LRM boats(catapults that can fit lasers) and light mechs are better off squeezing PPC's into the builds... that should be a major red flag that something is off.