17 replies to this topic

[Avalios]

Increase the maximum armor allowed on a mech from 20% to 30% of total weight. This will have many positive effects on the overall balance of the game.

1) More variety in mech customization.
Instead of loading out every mech with max armor everywhere with maybe 1-2 tons stripped off legs/arms you will now have a real choice to make when it comes to building out your mech. Do you max your side torso armor? or do you use that tonnage for additional weaponry? Look at your atlas builds....can you spare 10 tons for extra armor? Probably not, you now have decisions to make.

2) Where do i aim?
Currently you just aim CT and core your opponent out as quickly as possible. With more armor available Center Torsos will most likely be the most defended spot on any mech, but when you see a mech with a heavy tonnage loadout of weaponry and know he cant be heavily armored everywhere perhaps taking out his right arm and disabling much of his weaponry is the best option. Again more choice.

3) Mechs will live longer.
This has a double effect on mech life expectancy. Obviously more armor, but also somewhat less weaponry depending on how people load themselves out.
With mechs living longer, sustainable DPS will become more important then high damage alphas. Without doing any kind of crazy nerf to alpha striking itself, people will naturally build that way less.

4) Brawlings back baby.
While sniping from the back lines will still have its place, you will actually need a front line once again. PPCs are hot, albeit not as hot as they used to be, they are hot. Best way to fight them currently is to bum rush them and not give them the time they need to cooldown. That unfortunately doesn't work in the current meta because you're probably dead before you reach em. A team of 8 ppc boats would be overheating and unable to fire when 8 brawlers reach them are start ripping them to shreds............overall meta would change.

Thoughts? Please comment!!

[Monky]

A few problems with this;

A : few, if any, seriously under armor their mechs in the current setup. This means that armor is king, and in this new setup, everyone will likely run at or near max armor again.

B : Adding more armor makes high pinpoint alpha all the more important and spreading damage that much less productive.

C: While it will buy more time to get into brawling range, you now have to worry about 'where do I fit my ammo', which will likely cause highly durable (with the added armor) XL mechs with energy weapons to basically be the new meta, competing with very slow and hot running energy STD engine mechs, as no one will be willing to give up the survivability to mount a ballistic/lots of SRMs.

[3rdworld]

Mechs should be able to go past their normal armor amount at the cost of crits & tonnage.

Edited by 3rdworld, 10 July 2013 - 02:13 PM.

[Avalios]

Monky, on 10 July 2013 - 02:11 PM, said:

A few problems with this;

A : few, if any, seriously under armor their mechs in the current setup. This means that armor is king, and in this new setup, everyone will likely run at or near max armor again.

B : Adding more armor makes high pinpoint alpha all the more important and spreading damage that much less productive.

C: While it will buy more time to get into brawling range, you now have to worry about 'where do I fit my ammo', which will likely cause highly durable (with the added armor) XL mechs with energy weapons to basically be the new meta, competing with very slow and hot running energy STD engine mechs, as no one will be willing to give up the survivability to mount a ballistic/lots of SRMs.

A: Full armor would be extremely tonnage heavy and greatly reduce weapon capacity, in 8 mans you would most likely see the front line guys loaded this way with those in the back with larger weaponry. In pugs people would be more balanced.

B: Heat management would become all the more important with it taking longer to drop a mech, sustainable DPS would win out over high damage alphas.

C: Perhaps, perhaps not. That i would need to see in action.

[jeffsw6]

I think you would just see everyone put 50% more armor on their CT since that is where the Pee Pee Cees are pointed.

EDIT: You should add a "don't know" option to your poll. I didn't vote Yes or No because I am not sure how I feel about your suggestion. This improves the quality of your data. So does a funny, useless option (I use "Spock.")

Edited by jeffsw6, 10 July 2013 - 03:27 PM.

[Unbound Inferno]

We do not need another band-aid. We need a solution for the problem of why we think we need more armor.

[Khobai]

Just add hardened armor. Its a canon type of armor that allows twice the normal amount of armor. The downsides being you move slower and get knocked down more easily. Its also very expensive.

[jeffsw6]

Unbound Inferno, on 10 July 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

We do not need another band-aid. We need a solution for the problem of why we think we need more armor.

I think you mean more more armor, since we already have more armor!

[Unbound Inferno]

True. Realistically with the damage output in order to balance things we'd need 4x armor values for it to get close enough.

But I am not advocating that when they'll only give us 3x ammo.

[Khobai]

Quote

True. Realistically with the damage output in order to balance things we'd need 4x armor values for it to get close enough.

Yeah pretty much. If they doubled armor again wed be closer to tabletop. The problem with that is weapons like the AC/20 would lose their punch. So what they would need to do is add some kind of armor penetration stat for weapons like the AC/20.

[Bunko]

You've never played Battletech have you?

Armor values are twice what Battletech has due to the increased rate of fire and accuracy of hit location in MWO. Putting a % out there and placing as much as you want where you want is not at all what the game this game is based on is about.

Now, if PGI decides to increase the ratio of armor per Battletech to more protect against the rate of fire and accuracy PGI created then that would be ok.

Edited by Bunko, 10 July 2013 - 04:42 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

Khobai, on 10 July 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

Just add hardened armor. Its a canon type of armor that allows twice the normal amount of armor. The downsides being you move slower and get knocked down more easily. Its also very expensive.

No, Hardened Armor doesn't "allow twice the normal amount of armor".
Each unit of Hardened Armor is able to take two units of damage - in effect, it is a 50% damage resistance.
However, the maximum total number of armor points that can be mounted on the 'Mech remains constant.

3rdworld, on 10 July 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

Mechs should be able to go past their normal armor amount at the cost of crits & tonnage.

This is, in effect, what Modular Armor (developed in 3070) does.
"By mounting a special frame on the unit, it could support additional armor protection beyond what the internal frame would normally allow."
"Modular Armor adds ten points of standard armor protection to a unit in a particular location. Only one Modular Armor pack may be installed in a location. When mounted on a BattleMech torso the Modular Armor can only protect the front or back, and must be labeled as such on the record sheet."

[Corvus Antaka]

reactive / reflective armour and ferro granting 10% more armour but no less wieght would be plenty to add to the game.

[Khobai]

Quote

You've never played Battletech have you?

Armor values are twice what Battletech has due to the increased rate of fire and accuracy of hit location in MWO.

I have played Battletech. And let me explain to you why double armor is insufficient. In Battletech the chance of a weapon hitting someone in the center torso is about 20%. In MWO the chance of a weapon hitting someone in the center torso is potentially 100% with perfect aim. That is five times more damage than Battletech. Double armor cuts that down to 2.5 times more damage than Battletech. Damage is 2-3 times higher than it should be.

Quote

No, Hardened Armor doesn't "allow twice the normal amount of armor".

Uh it basically does. It takes twice as much damage to destroy your armor. Except armor piercing rounds do full damage to hardened armor.

If hardened armor was added to MWO, weapons like the AC/20 should get bonus damage against hardened armor, to represent their ability to pierce armor better than other weapons. That would help keep the AC/20 scary like it rightfully should be.

But this is all besides the point. The truth is we wouldnt even need hardened armor if PGI would just fix convergence which is the #1 cause for all weapon imbalance atm.

Edited by Khobai, 10 July 2013 - 08:53 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

As a start, they could double the internal structure instead of the armor. That way things can go boom in the night and be destroyed without killing the player as quickly.

Then work on the accuracy items if it is something that can not be remedied quickly.

[Fooooo]

% based on tonnage is probably more fair than the straight double we got already.....as mechs with higher armour gained more.

However,
Couldn't you just lower weapon dmg and get the same result ? I mean, TT has already been diverted from in many ways, who cares if an ac/20 does 10dmg instead of 20.


I guess it really doesnt matter, however wouldn't that be the easier route than just flat doubling armour again or adding some new % of weight = armor mechanic ??

[Strum Wealh]

Khobai, on 10 July 2013 - 08:39 PM, said:

Uh it basically does. It takes twice as much damage to destroy your armor. Except armor piercing rounds do full damage to hardened armor.

If hardened armor was added to MWO, weapons like the AC/20 should get bonus damage against hardened armor, to represent their ability to pierce armor better than other weapons. That would help keep the AC/20 scary like it rightfully should be.

No, it really doesn't.

For example, each of the Marauder, Orion, and Mad Cat, all as 75-ton 'Mechs, are limited to a maximum of 231 armor points (doubled 462 armor points for MWO).

• A Marauder with 231 armor points of Standard Armor would be carrying 14.44 (rounded up to 14.5) tons of armor.
  
• An Orion with 231 armor points of IS FF Armor would be carrying 12.89 (rounded up to 13.0) tons of armor.
  
• A Mad Cat with with 231 armor points of Clan FF Armor would be carrying 12.03 (rounded up to 12.5) tons of armor.

Each of the above would not be able to carry any more armor, because the limiting point ("the number of armor points that the internal structure can support") has been reached.

Hardened Armor works the same way - a Marauder or Orion with 231 armor points of Hardened Armor (at 8 armor points per ton) would be carrying 28.88 (rounded up to 29.0) tons of armor, and (barring the use of Modular Armor) would not be able to carry any more (even if the tonnage to theoretically do so were available) because because the limiting point ("the number of armor points that the internal structure can support") has been reached.

While Hardened Armor does not let one carry more armor (that is, the number of armor points is still capped at the same amount as for Standard and FF armors), it is twice as durable per armor point (it takes two units of damage to remove one armor point of Hardened Armor, as opposed to one unit of damage to remove one armor point of Standard or FF armor). This is, in effect, a 50% damage reduction/resistance - such a 'Mech would act like it is carrying twice as much armor, even though it is not actually doing so.

Moreover, Hardened Armor's susceptibility to "armor piercing" rounds refers specifically to the highly-specialized Armor-Piercing alternate autocannon munitions developed by the FedCom (which doesn't begin full-scale production until 3059); normal AC shells, despite being HEAP/APHE shells, are unable to take advantage of that susceptibility.

[Lord of All]

50% is a huge increase a jump how about jumping it to 22%? 10% at a time?

How about you make the poll

"Change armor value?

-10%
-5%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%....

you get the idea.

Edited by Lord of All, 11 July 2013 - 10:18 AM.