49 replies to this topic

[MegaZordTrololo]

The current heat penalties are going to help curb the PPC nightmare (when they combine PPC and ERPPC to a single class on the 30th). However the solution does feel tacked on and adds an uninteresting and simply ugly layer of complexity to the combat mechanics.

Having said that, I don't see any other way to control the effectiveness of 4+ PPC builds (other than nerfing the PPC into oblivion) without proper weapon convergence; which PGI ruled out because of the excessive network demands this entails (their netcode barely copes with the current convergance system, so I can see where they are coming from).

What I would like to see is for PGI to get cracking with more interesting Mech traits that involve more than just arm and torso twist. If variants and entire chassis had traits where weapons fire hotter or cooler, problem chassis like the Stalker could be controlled by a simple "+20% heat to every weapon" trait. Or the Awesome, the quintissential PPC mech, could have the opposite "-20% heat to every weapon" trait, giving it a nasty punch to counterbalance its vulnerable profile and awkwardly placed weapon mounts.

You could even have interesting stuff like "+20% to Jumpjet boost strength" for the Spider. Or "-20% to weapon lock time" for the Quickdraw, or "+20% LRM ammo/ton" for the Catapult. Anything that would help make Mech's feel more distinct will help the game so very much. As it stands mechs with the highest weapon mounts have everything going for them and this is BORING. Only the Atlas manages to make its awkward weapon mounts work because of its sheer bulk providing staying power and massive potential firepower.

[101011]

When you think about it, the canon explanation for the stock 'Mech's configuration is that a MechWarrior has no choice over where he is deployed. One month he could be on an isolated moon, another in an urban jungle, but he only has ONE 'Mech available, and very rarely can he change the config. If said Warrior loses his 'Mech, game over. If he dies, game over. So, to prevent this, they build their 'Mechs to be suitable for as many conditions as possible, out of a combination of self-preservation and expense. But here, in MW:O, there is no instinct for self preservation. If you build a cheese build, say, 3 GR Cataphract, and then a light comes after you and kills you, there is no "Oh, I need to prevent that from ever happening again", it is, "Oh, I need to wait 10 minutes and then forget it ever happened because I'm blowing other people apart!" Another consideration is terrain variances, or lack thereof. The larger maps, when introduced, helped stop people from constantly brawling (remember when a sniper was laughed at?), but they also encouraged sniping. And of course, people realized that you can use these "sniper" weapons at any range, for a lot less risk. After all, why take a medium laser when you can take a PPC, which does immediate damage, travels further, and it's only real drawback is the extra weight. (Heat isn't really a drawback because, in all honesty, most times you overheat, nothing untoward happens to you. Especially at range. Heck, it protects you from incoming missiles!)


TL;DR I believe some of the causes are that they are too effective at close range, have no drawbacks apart from weight, (which actually puts more emphasis on heavier 'mechs), and there is no need to have a balanced build because there is no need to protect yourself (could be summed up as lack of CW) or your 'Mech.
Huh, I had no intention of making that wall of text. (Unrelated note: does anyone else have problems with their "Enter/Return" key not working? I have no ways of skipping lines apart from spamming the space bar)

Edited by 101011, 21 July 2013 - 05:24 PM.

[Livebait]

The new heat penalties have not really effected my laser builds. They run a little hotter and you cant alpha to many times, but that's a good thing IMO. It's really not that bad. If you run a 1.4 or 1.5 heat ratio you will be fine.

[Josef Nader]

FupDup, on 21 July 2013 - 04:50 PM, said:

How are you defining "like mechs are built in Tabletop"? If you mean having a mixed loadout that has 6+ completely unrelated weapons that have no synergy whatsoever, than you're only partially right. There are indeed a very large amount of "balanced" stock builds in TT, in fact the vast majority of them are. But to say that boats are against TT is just plain false. I don't think I need to use a bazillion Sarna links, we all know what the TT boats are.

There are plenty of boats in tabletop, but they're pretty well balanced when compared to non-boats, and that's what important. A balanced build should be able to fight a boat effectively. Even crazy stuff like the Bane is still balanced against other mechs. Boats are always powerful, but that power comes with limitations.

In Mechwarrior, those limitations tend to be too easy to circumvent, so bringing tons of syngergizing weapons and minmaxing for a very specific role tends to be the best way of exploiting it. Bringing mixed builds is almost always inferior to bringing a focused build. By "push to build more like battletech" I mean "mixed builds have to be competitive with focused builds." Your brawler-focused Atlas should be threatened by the large laser and LRM10 I brought for ranged combat as long as I can avoid getting within your range. Your sniper Stalker should be threatened by the couple of medium lasers and SRMs I brought for close range combat provided I can get in close to you. I have no problem with mixed builds losing to focused boats in the environments those boats were designed for, but a mixed pilot and a focused pilot of equal skill should have a roughly equal fight.

tl;dr Frankenmechs should be viable. They were viable in tabletop because they could figure out their opponents weaknesses and exploit them. Bringing a little of everything so you can play to your opponents weaknesses is how you win fights in Tabletop, and it has to be a viable tactic here. In order for that to be the case, there have to be new mechanics introduced that combat the extremely high effectiveness of boats in real-time Mechwarrior games.

[Mystere]

Just exactly how may polls are we going to have on this very same topic?

[FupDup]

Josef Nader, on 21 July 2013 - 05:53 PM, said:

-snip-

tl;dr Frankenmechs should be viable. They were viable in tabletop because they could figure out their opponents weaknesses and exploit them. Bringing a little of everything so you can play to your opponents weaknesses is how you win fights in Tabletop, and it has to be a viable tactic here. In order for that to be the case, there have to be new mechanics introduced that combat the extremely high effectiveness of boats in real-time Mechwarrior games.

A way to do this other than directly nerfing boats is to just make each individual weapon have very large and distinctive weaknesses. For instance, a weapon that already works like this is the LRM. An LRM launcher is easily defeated at range by taking cover, or in a brawl you can get within 180 meters. If neither of those is possible, you can always use AMS to soften up the volley. If somebody tries to carry nothing but LRMs, those weaknesses are magnified. Even if they carry a few backup ML or something, they are still easily munched up by a brawler or out-sniped by direct fire weapons.

SRM and pulse laser boats have weaknesses of their own as well (short range), so they don't need a max alpha either. Standard lasers and most autocannons don't really have a specific weakness (well, laser boats can be sorta countered by lots of twisting to spread the damage everywhere), but then again they also lack a specific strength--so those can be overpowered up close or from afar. The only Autocannon that might be problematic is the AC/20 because it does more damage at the AC/10's optimum range than the AC/10 does--that can just be fixed by lowering the max range on the AC/20 (optimal range of 270m would stay).


Certain weapons like PPCs and Gauss just need large weaknesses (Gauss already asplodes but that doesn't really matter if mounted in your arm), preferably weaknesses of sucking in close combat. I'm sure some folks will scream that those weapons were perfectly capable of winning point-blank brawls in TT , but really there isn't much point of having short-range-only weapons if the long range weapons are just as good up close but also have the added ability to shoot farther.



On a different point regarding the same topic, factors that make it harder for frankenmechs to succeed are differences in projectile speed and reload times. Perhaps most weapons could have 1-3 other weapons that share the same cooldown with it to help add some synergy. Projectile speed sharing might get a little bit awkward between ballistics, lasers, and missiles though (LRMs and SSRMs are tracking so they are able to bypass projectile speed differences because they can be aimed at the same time as other weapons).

Mystere, on 21 July 2013 - 07:13 PM, said:

Just exactly how may polls are we going to have on this very same topic?

Edited by FupDup, 21 July 2013 - 07:27 PM.

[Erata]

1: The heat penalty punishes mechs which weren't great to begin with like the Awesome, which naturally boat energy. Due to their GIGANTIC TORSO, they're lower tier mechs. The Hunchback 4-P is directly nerfed even though it's a medium mech.

2: The heat penalty doesn't lower the DPS of PPCs when compared to builds using brawling weapons like the medium laser / srm launcher combos. A lot of mechs that can use 4 PPCs will sustain around 3.75 DPS outside of 90 meters. Even within 90 meters, the damage scales down linearly, meaning their DPS is only affected significantly within 10 meters, an unrealistic expectation in typical combat.

As a result, the game still favors weapons leaning into stick and run alpha damage such as PPCs, because the burst damage enables any mech to reduce exposure time between cover.

Edited by Erata, 21 July 2013 - 07:30 PM.

[TehSBGX]

No, there are simple ways to work around it and the weapon causing the most abuse in the meta, PPCs have gone untouched. Futhermore the math used in the system is convoluted and nearly impossible to explain to newbies. The "heat fix" may also destroy role warfare and push everyone into generalist frankenmechs.

Paul's folly has got to go.

[Josef Nader]

TehSBGX, on 21 July 2013 - 07:33 PM, said:

The "heat fix" may also destroy role warfare and push everyone into generalist frankenmechs.

Uh, that's exactly the reason it was implemented. To make generalist frankenmechs more desirable than boats. If the heat fix does that, I'd say well done, as it's the first MW game that supported generalist builds in a competitive sense.

[King Arthur IV]

just because a mech has X amount of same weapons, doesn't mean it should be alphing the whole way through. the game has always revolved around heat management, before the penalties the management was next to zero.

you may still boat your weapons now but you have to be more careful with heat and the pin point damage is not as server. firing over your limit should really be a last ditch effort to kill someone before they kill you. right now good snipers are useful in a team but a team with too many snipers can get flanked and become useless in a brawl.

[TehSBGX]

Josef Nader, on 21 July 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

Uh, that's exactly the reason it was implemented. To make generalist frankenmechs more desirable than boats. If the heat fix does that, I'd say well done, as it's the first MW game that supported generalist builds in a competitive sense.

Role Warfare is one of the games Pillars, it needs to stay. We were meant to have scouts, brawlers, snipers, fire support, skirmishers etc. Pushing us into generalist builds violates one of the ideas we were expecting to see expanded more so when CW hits and more weapons balance is acheived.

Edited by TehSBGX, 21 July 2013 - 08:19 PM.

[zazz0000]

A solution? Yes.

A good solution? No.

Plenty of better ways to curb boating, this one feels thrown together, a "path of least resistance" if you will.

[TOGSolid]

zazz0000, on 21 July 2013 - 08:08 PM, said:

A solution? Yes.

A good solution? No.

Plenty of better ways to curb boating, this one feels thrown together, a "path of least resistance" if you will.

The path of least resistance would have been to keep heat sinks from increasing the heat cap so that everyone has to stick to 30 heat total and putting PPCs back to how they used to be before their buff to compensate for the lack of HSR. This heat scaling thing is anything but the easiest solution.

Edited by TOGSolid, 21 July 2013 - 08:24 PM.

[Josef Nader]

TehSBGX, on 21 July 2013 - 07:59 PM, said:

Role Warfare is one of the games Pillars, it needs to stay. We were meant to have scouts, brawlers, snipers, fire support, skirishers etc. Pushing us into generalist builds violates one of the ideas we were expecting to see expanded more so when CW hits and more weapons balance is acheived.

Battletech had roles too, and almost every mech in Battletech is designed as a frankenmech. Scouts were fast and carried comms gear, brawlers carried a whole range of weapons to fight in any engagement, juggernauts carried tons of close-in weapons, and snipers had long-range direct fire.

The only real exception to this were light mechs, as they were too small to carry a really diverse mix of weapons. While most mechs were designed with a role in mind, they could almost always operate outside of their intended purpose in a pinch. The Atlas was designed to be the final word in close-range combat, but it's LRM 20 gave it the option of dealing with targets outside it's very limited range. The Catapult, one of the most iconic LRM support mechs ever, carries enough medium lasers to serve as an effective brawler if it's pressured into it. For every single-purpose medium mech, like the Hunchback, there's a half-dozen multipurpose mediums designed with a variety of small weapons systems, like the Centurion, the Shadow Hawk, and the Blackjack.

tl;dr You could build very effective single-role mechs in Tabletop, but if you didn't try to cover all of your bases to some extent a mixed-build mech will find that weakness and ruthlessly exploit it.

Edited by Josef Nader, 21 July 2013 - 08:19 PM.

[jeffsw6]

TehSBGX, on 21 July 2013 - 07:33 PM, said:

Paul's folly has got to go.

I fixed it for you

[Amsro]

I can't believe this was part of the BIG PATCH MONTH. I mean are you even working on fixing the game? This patch changed nothing, and broke a few things.

[Erata]

Josef Nader, on 21 July 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

Uh, that's exactly the reason it was implemented. To make generalist frankenmechs more desirable than boats. If the heat fix does that, I'd say well done, as it's the first MW game that supported generalist builds in a competitive sense.

The thing is that it doesn't fix that if you bother to read the multitude of arguments against it, which state basically:

0.50 second delay causes the DPS of the nerfed burst weapons to put out the same damage, for the same heat, with only a 0.5 second delay.

It's a micro-nerf that does not affect good players.

[Josef Nader]

Erata, on 21 July 2013 - 09:11 PM, said:

The thing is that it doesn't fix that if you bother to read the multitude of arguments against it, which state basically:

0.50 second delay causes the DPS of the nerfed burst weapons to put out the same damage, for the same heat, with only a 0.5 second delay.

It's a micro-nerf that does not affect good players.

Ah, but that half second delay lets the good player on the other end spread the damage. That alone is a significant nerf. If your first volley hits my left torso, and the second volley hits my left arm, you really haven't hurt me as much as you would have if all of your weapons hit my left torso. This is a significant change in how snipers work that good players can take advantage of.

It is a micro-nerf that affects good players just enough to give other good players in non-sniper builds a chance to spread their damage and close in. Snipers need to still be good in the right hands, they just can't be overwhelming. Before the heat nerf, they were overwhelming. Now they're managable, provided you've got a little skill.

Addendum: Let's not forget that the DPS of sniper weapons is universally terrible, with the exception of the AC2. They are only scary because they can put all of their damage in one place at great distance. They get completely burned down by higher DPS SRMs and autocannons at close range.

Edited by Josef Nader, 21 July 2013 - 09:20 PM.

[Damocles69]

zazz0000, on 21 July 2013 - 08:08 PM, said:

A solution? Yes.

A good solution? No.

Plenty of better ways to curb boating, this one feels thrown together, a "path of least resistance" if you will.

kinda like the design philosophy of this whole game

[TehSBGX]

Josef Nader, on 21 July 2013 - 08:17 PM, said:

Battletech had roles too, and almost every mech in Battletech is designed as a frankenmech. Scouts were fast and carried comms gear, brawlers carried a whole range of weapons to fight in any engagement, juggernauts carried tons of close-in weapons, and snipers had long-range direct fire.

The only real exception to this were light mechs, as they were too small to carry a really diverse mix of weapons. While most mechs were designed with a role in mind, they could almost always operate outside of their intended purpose in a pinch. The Atlas was designed to be the final word in close-range combat, but it's LRM 20 gave it the option of dealing with targets outside it's very limited range. The Catapult, one of the most iconic LRM support mechs ever, carries enough medium lasers to serve as an effective brawler if it's pressured into it. For every single-purpose medium mech, like the Hunchback, there's a half-dozen multipurpose mediums designed with a variety of small weapons systems, like the Centurion, the Shadow Hawk, and the Blackjack.

tl;dr You could build very effective single-role mechs in Tabletop, but if you didn't try to cover all of your bases to some extent a mixed-build mech will find that weakness and ruthlessly exploit it.

TT Lore Aside. It's actually more efficent to have a team of specialists I.E. A couple brawlers or skirmishers, a couple snipers, a couple lrm support and a scout or two in M:WO. Each Specialist covers the Others weaknesses, a team of generalists will excel at nothing in this game. I'd rather be a skirmisher with some LRM support covering me than being a jack of all trades with some other frankenmech trying to back me because it makes more sense from a tactical standpoint.

Edited by TehSBGX, 21 July 2013 - 09:21 PM.