1084 replies to this topic

[MadTulip]

Jakob Knight, on 12 July 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

The problem is with the missions in MWO (kill all the enemy, or capture a flag only), which promote limited configurations, not the mechs or weapons.

That is also in my eyes one of the main problems.

I would also like to see limited avaibility of parts like weapons or chassis due to the CW metagame. I would like to see missions where you can and as they are sparse have to "loot PPCs".

[Tarzilman]

Aim64C, on 12 July 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

You were the kid who went to a steak house with his parents and ordered the grilled cheese all the time, weren't you?

*lol*

No.

But you were the kid that cried all the time, because you didn't get your toys, huh?

[Nulnoil]

Aim64C, on 12 July 2013 - 08:37 AM, said:

I see a lot of PPCs flying around in almost every match. There's a few who get creative and have a 4 UAC5 phract or something.

Hey! They are cheaters! Are you reported them already? Because no one of cataphract variants can not carry 4uac5 legally

[Wintersdark]

Semper Fi, on 11 July 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

Well, it would seem increasing damage is going to happen. So, let the SRM-aggedon begin on the 16th.

Seriously, you've been around, you should know damn well that even when SRM's are overpowered - like they were for a LONG time with the broken splash bug - it's not "SRMaggedon". Even in the Splatcat's glory days, it wasn't that bad. They won't now be anywhere near as bad as they were, for a number of reasons:

1 - Splash damage has been reduced to a ridiculously small radius due to the splash bug. Formerly, SRM's splashed just like LRM's, resulting in single missiles doing upwards of 12 damage to certain mechs.
2 - SRM's old flight path resulted in "pinches" at varying ranges. This allowed skilled splatcat pilots to hit with their full missle payload in a highly concentrated point - in short, a good splatcat pilot could land all 36 missiles in an Atlas's center torso, and due to the splash bug above this would mean a massively powerful single hit capable of stripping nearly all the armor off the Atlas's CT, and doing substantial damage to surrounding components as well.
3 - SRM's previously did 2.2 damage, plus the splash.

Even with all the above, and SRM's being undeniably overpowered, it wasn't a big deal. In order to utilize that, you had to get up close and personal. Technically within 270 meters, but even when overpowered like above SRM's are largely useless at those ranges. You really needed to be very close - around 150m or so - to get good usage out of them.

Furthermore? ALL our maps were small then. All of them. The Caldera was the "big" map. Remember Alpine's introduction and how terrible it was to play a Splatcat on it? Yeah.

---

Fast-forward to after these SRM changes come in.

Damage is higher, range is still low, SRM's spread out to maximum spread extremely quickly. Instead of a cone of fire making them ever more effective the closer you get, spread is fairly wide and predictable. SRM's are thus effective further out, however because unless your facehumping the target your spread is going to be very wide regardless: lots of missed rockets or very highly spread damage.

We've got another large map coming in with these changes (Lava world), bringing the really big map total to 3.

Now, add these changes to a game where the most common loadout is exactly the best loadout to counter SRM boats, extremely long range pinpoint alpha.

Sure, the fabled splatcat can deliver a 72 point Alpha (assuming you actually hit with every missile) against large targets only at a hard maximum of 270 meters. Keep in mind, even large medium mechs aren't going to take all the hits, because they tend to be spindly - lots of missiles will miss. The damage that is done will be spread evenly across the enemy mech. A AC40 jag/cat can push 40 damage to a specific spot (50 with a pair of MLas supporting, or 60 if you run with 4) and is capable of hurting you very badly out to around 470 meters.

A Gauss+2ERPPC mech (and you can go much higher damage of course, but these will be more common I imagine) will be hammering you for 35 damage to a pinpoint spot at 650m, and still causing noteworthy harm a kilometer out.

---

I'm just happy to see close-in brawling be dangerous again. I'm ecstatic to think of all those 3/4 missile heavy mediums that are very lackluster right now actually having a good place to fit in again. I'm very happy as well that people will be weighing whether they want to devote all their weapons tonnage to PPC's, or if they want to back off on the pinpoint alpha in favour of higher close-in "Shotgun" damage.

[Wintersdark]

VagGR, on 11 July 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

people voting for the dmg increase..and then the real issue gets resolved, there will be an SRM apocalypse and then people will be crying for a dmg reduce....no its not better than nothing it may seem better now but i bet its gonan cause even more problems later on...

See above. Even when SRM's are overpowered, it's not nearly as crappy for the game as a whole than the high pinpoint alphas we have now. With the pinpoints, you're minding your own business, then BAM you're headshot and dead from a kilometer out. And up close? That mech is just as dangerous, as it's still hammering specific locations for heavy damage.

With SRM's, the mech attacking you has to be very, very close. Even then, he's spreading that damage around instead of surgically dismantling you.

Seriously, it's not nearly as rage inducing.

Edited by Wintersdark, 12 July 2013 - 09:24 AM.

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 12 July 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

"wrote lots of awesomeness"

You forgot Seismic.

Unlike the AC40 Jager or K2, SRMs actually have a range limit to adhere to. The AC20 mechs can still fire from a short distance comparable to a Gauss Rifle or AC10 to deal damage. The Splatcat majorly suffered from heat as is and can't do its awesomeness long term.

Edited by Deathlike, 12 July 2013 - 09:29 AM.

[Accursed Richards]

Jakob Knight, on 12 July 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

But where did those uber-configs come from in the first place? Someone had to figure it out. And then, just putting the config on your mech does not hand you victory...you have to learn how to use it, or you will still fail when your opponent hits the flaws in your design. Also, using that uber-build in a situation where it doesn't work well will still get you into trouble because you didn't recognize how to compensate for it. All of this requires skill, despite your apparent confidence that configuring a mech in the game is simply a matter of cut-and-paste. And why would it seem strange that players should keep an advantage they have put in the effort to learn, rather than have it taken from them by players without the effort to learn how to counter them? That seems much stranger to me.

I ran a balanced Cataphract & Jenner, died a lot. I copied the AC/40 Jager build from the forums, and only finished one match without at least one kill. And "flaws"? Only if you consider "vulnerable to PPC boats" or "so dangerous that skilled players will shoot you first" a flaw. All there was to "learn" about the build was basic CT targeting skills, and a basic knowledge of cover and hiding behind someone else until I was in range. It didn't hand me victory, but it made victory much more easy than if I'd run it with, say, LBX's. No amount of SKILL will make an LBX boat as effective as an AC20 boat in the hands of an equally good player.

The cheese builds proliferate because they're far better than the alternatives, and don't have "flaws" beyond the ones common to every other mech. I didn't do better in the Jager because I'm godly skilled, I do it because the build was unbalanced. I can admit I didn't earn that advantage, I simply exploited a combination of busted mechanics to make the game easier than it should have been for those matches.

Why on earth would I be proud of that?

Jakob Knight, on 12 July 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

Ultimately, if you keep going down this path, it simply will not matter if you have a Flamer or an AC/20 on your mech because, despite you spending 16 times the weight and 10 times the critical spaces for the AC/20, it will afford no advantages. This is the final result of your ideal of 'everything being viable'. Everything should -not- be viable, but rather each have its own strengths and weaknesses that determine its viability or not in a given situation.

I'm not sure what you're saying here, given how you either contradict yourself in the last sentence or don't know what "viable" means. I've consistently argued that everything should have a role, such that in the mechlab you think "Okay, a PPC would be good for this, but a LPL good for this, or an ERL good for this...." instead of "OK, PPC's, I'm done."

Balancing should be such that on average, a player with a certain skill level will perform just as well in one build as the other--but this does not mean that both builds do the same thing! There should be multiple different ways of fighting, each roughly equal in success rate and each appropriate in different maps / circumstances, with different weapons & mechs being suitable for each of those ways. Call it....."role warfare" or something.

[Aim64C]

Tarzilman, on 12 July 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

*lol*

No.

But you were the kid that cried all the time, because you didn't get your toys, huh?

Oh, come now. That's the best you can come up with?

I'm the kid who told people they were wrong and/or about to get hurt. Then, when they didn't heed that advice, I laughed while they were crying over being grounded for poor grades or because they just broke their arm.

Daumantas Galland, on 12 July 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

Hey! They are cheaters! Are you reported them already? Because no one of cataphract variants can not carry 4uac5 legally

Perhaps I misread and it was merely 4 AC5s. Regardless, there was way too much dakka going on for me to be hanging around in my BlackJack.

[SteelPaladin]

Aim64C, on 12 July 2013 - 07:46 AM, said:

Honestly, that solution doesn't work in a real-time environment.

In Tabletop - your heat is calculated at the beginning of each turn. You can fire a trio of PPCs. So long as you have 15 double heat-sinks installed, you're good at the beginning of your next turn. Your mech suffers no heat penalty.

If, however, you only had 10 double heat sinks, you now have 10 points of heat on your mech, and will suffer penalties.

Translating the penalties to a real-time environment doesn't work without serious renovation to the idea. A Jenner 7F fires 3 medium lasers and is momentarily at 50% of his heat capacity, which is going to, say, cut his movement speed by 20%. He just went from 140kph to 112 kph. He just became a trebuchet with a fraction of the armor.

The Atlas with an AC20 says: "Hey, that tickled" and puts said autocannon into the now slowed Jenner. Sure, he's at 40% of his heat capacity and suffering a 35% movement penalty - but he's an Atlas. 65% of ponderously slow is not exactly changing much.

Working that into a real-time environment would require some sort of mathematical system that builds penalties over time (and decreases those penalties over time) based on how long heat remains at certain levels. Higher amounts of heat would transfer into penalties more rapidly than lower amounts of heat sustained over time, and penalties would not simply drop as the heat dropped, but linger for a while before dissipating, themselves.

Actually, PGI already designed the current heat system to deal w/it. Your mech's heat threshold (100% on the heat gauge) is 30 (the size of the heat chart from TT) + the dissipation of your mounted heat sinks over 10 seconds. So if you've got 10 single HS, your "100%" is 40, giving you that 10 extra heat for "free" to represent the heat that would have dissipated over your "turn" and not been counted for penalties. The problem is that they also give you that 30 for free, when bad things should start happening not too long past the amount of heat given by your heat sinks.

The current state of the heat system looks like there were two guys at PGI putting it together and they had opposing viewpoints. On one hand, they kept heat dissipation to a 10 second cycle while turning up fire rates (and thus heat generation) and reduced the effectiveness of DHS, all w/the stated purpose of making sure that heat remained a constant concern even w/tech 2. On the other hand, however, they made a heat scale that is very forgiving and has shutdown as the only real penalty (and not until after you've hammered the hell out of the other guy).

[Kraven Kor]

Tarzilman, on 12 July 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

*lol*

No.

But you were the kid that cried all the time, because you didn't get your toys, huh?

Because this is helping the conversation I'm sure.

Take it to PM's guys, nobody wants to watch your courtship ritual

[Tarzilman]

Kraven Kor, on 12 July 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

Because this is helping the conversation I'm sure.

Take it to PM's guys, nobody wants to watch your courtship ritual

You're definetly right, I'm sorry.

At least we all just want a good balanced game and have fun at the battlefield.

I'm very curious about the changes that will come now and in the future.

[East Indy]

Jakob Knight, on 12 July 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

I dunno. The appeal of Battletech for me was always figuring out how to counter my opponents' tactics and strategies

That's just poetry. I'm talking about the quick-kill alpha.

Quote

It is very restrictive at the moment, and if anything needs to be opened up more.

So you never wondered why only select 'Mechs can equip ECM or jump jets?

This isn't an art contest. It's a game, and players most desperate to win will use any means they can -- look several posts back about "first-order optimal" ploys, which homogenize and break games.

Too many players grab 'Mechs, rip out stock loadouts and drop one of three weapons into them because they can, instead of working with diverse armaments or seeking out different models and challenging themselves with its idiosyncrasies. What they're doing is bad for the game.

[SteelPaladin]

East Indy, on 12 July 2013 - 10:32 AM, said:

So you never wondered why only select 'Mechs can equip ECM or jump jets?

This isn't an art contest. It's a game, and players most desperate to win will use any means they can -- look several posts back about "first-order optimal" ploys, which homogenize and break games.

Too many players grab 'Mechs, rip out stock loadouts and drop one of three weapons into them because they can, instead of working with diverse armaments or seeking out different models and challenging themselves with its idiosyncrasies. What they're doing is bad for the game.

This is the primary reason I dread the coming of OmniMechs. Choose the skin for your bag of guns and go.

It is the combination of choices and limitations that makes for intricate strategy. Too few of one or the other and the system falls apart.

[Wintersdark]

Deathlike, on 12 July 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

You forgot Seismic.

Unlike the AC40 Jager or K2, SRMs actually have a range limit to adhere to. The AC20 mechs can still fire from a short distance comparable to a Gauss Rifle or AC10 to deal damage. The Splatcat majorly suffered from heat as is and can't do its awesomeness long term.

And with the Heat Scaling coming, SRM6's will be capped at 3 before exponential gains. The Splatcat was already very hot.

So, the solution is obviously dropping down to 3SRM6 and 4SRM4 or some such combination, but that further neuters it's smashing power.

Seriously, this is just like the BAP changes and OMGTHESTREAKCATS. There have been many other background changes that prevent a return of what they once were.

[Nightwinder]

Krivvan, on 11 July 2013 - 05:48 PM, said:

I would like to point out that the PPC got to where it was because hit detection changes and its buff occurred at the same time.

PPC's were buffed repeatedly (heat/travel speed) before ballistic HSR went in.

[skill gap]

Niko Snow, on 11 July 2013 - 10:25 AM, said:

Tell us what you think of the latest news on heat scale from Paul.

Taking damage over 100% heat is fine but why not lower heat capacity (30 like BattleTech) instead of making up special rules for every weapon in the game?

[dunkov]

What about my Awesome 8R? He is designed to run 4x LRM 15 ? I'm being penalized for running a build that the mech was built for?

[East Indy]

SteelPaladin, on 12 July 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

This is the primary reason I dread the coming of OmniMechs. Choose the skin for your bag of guns and go.

It is the combination of choices and limitations that makes for intricate strategy. Too few of one or the other and the system falls apart.

Agreed, and to be honest, I assume Clans will be only gingerly introduced into the game or used as a carrot in perpetuity. Because, you're right, when you can do anything in this undertaking, you end up doing the same thing.

[Phobic Wraith]

So wait, if we take damage at 100% heat regardless of all other factors, why do we shut down at all?

[ohtochooseaname]

ER Large Laser and Large Laser should share a bucket. Maybe LPL's should share them as well.