49 replies to this topic

[PEEFsmash]

Homeless Bill, on 23 July 2013 - 05:18 PM, said:

I would pay MC out the *** to be able to see server-side game replays where I can compare what I thought was happening and what was going on IRL. Spiders are all kinds of ****** up.

Okay so how much will you pay me to enter games with you and die so I can spectate you (aka view what you do from server side) and give you the video afterwards to compare to your own?

[TLBFestus]

Yup. How many times have you noticed a Spider being the last mech in the game, and dodging between multiple mechs, but taking forever to die?

Answer: Too often.

[Karazyr]

Psikez, on 23 July 2013 - 02:44 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure spiders exist in a higher dimension and only occasionally, very briefly, phase into our lowly world. It is during these rare occurences it is actually possible to hit them.

as it should be you puny lower life forms! muhhahahahahah

but yeah it is a problem, if you get 2 spiders together its impossible to kill them

[Karazyr]

Roland, on 23 July 2013 - 07:18 PM, said:

The thing that is crazy is that if you are playing a spider, you will HEAR and FEEL ppcs and gauss hitting you, but doing no damage.

I assume it's because your client is seeing those shots as hits, but on the shooter's end they missed, and the server registers the miss... and the sound is purely from my own client. But damn if it doesn't seem weird.

i wish this happened to me, i dont even hear ppcs hit me but they do damage, its strange as hell to have my CT nearly cored by a ppc that missed me.

still love the rush of playing my spider, its not like its god mode it still dies in one shot from those bullshitty highlanders.

[Dreamslave]

Orzorn, on 23 July 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

Don't forget how PGI can't scale mechs properly, and thus heavies are only slightly larger than mediums, meaning you get more bang for your buck in terms of size.

Hell, the Treb is straight up taller than most heavies, and the Cataphract has the great blessing of being squat.

Exactly this. If Mediums were properly scaled, they'd be smaller and more maneuverable than their current iterations.

[Homeless Bill]

PEEFsmash, on 23 July 2013 - 08:08 PM, said:

Okay so how much will you pay me to enter games with you and die so I can spectate you (aka view what you do from server side) and give you the video afterwards to compare to your own?

All the quarters. Really, I'm surprised more people haven't done that. For maximum efficiency, you'd probably want to drop with a Spider as well and just try to TK him. It'd be disruptive, but since there are no private matches...

[MustrumRidcully]

That might be the issue that Paul mentioned why he cautioned against raising SRM damage. (But I don't see it really as an argument against raising SRM damage. SRMs needed more punch, and I don't think they too much now - theys till feel weaker than they were before the great LRM splash damage apocalypse, and that might indicate they are in a reasonable rnage now). A problem with hit registration against lighter mechs.

[Gaan Cathal]

PEEFsmash, on 23 July 2013 - 05:06 PM, said:

Anddddd Lights are still tied with Mediums for worst class in the game. That should tell you something.

And BTW this is mostly a Spider problem, but Spiders are still one of the 2-3 worst chassis in the game. That should REALLY tell you something about lights.

This has come up in another thread and, since it's related to this, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

In short:

All weight classes need to be independently viable, since the limiting resource is pilots not tonnage or BV (and all tonnage limits does if heavier = better is force some people into categorically worse mechs, irrespective of if they like them or not).

With that in mind, given that somewhat larger engines and slightly smaller hitboxes clearly don't cut it with respect to the increased tonnage to spend on gear that heavier mechs receive - would a viable solution be a significant limitation of torso twist speed and arm movement with increasing tonnage? Thus it legitimately makes heavier mechs less able to track lighter ones, whilst still enabling slightly heavier mechs to brutalise those immediately below them. Ideally this would be tonnage based, not weight class based (helps the Dragon, Awesome somewhat, we know bottom-tonnage mechs have issues) and might see a return to the food-chain loop we used to have where Assault > Heavy > Medium > Light > Assault (in general terms).

[PEEFsmash]

Gaan Cathal, on 24 July 2013 - 12:55 AM, said:

This has come up in another thread and, since it's related to this, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

In short:

All weight classes need to be independently viable, since the limiting resource is pilots not tonnage or BV (and all tonnage limits does if heavier = better is force some people into categorically worse mechs, irrespective of if they like them or not).

With that in mind, given that somewhat larger engines and slightly smaller hitboxes clearly don't cut it with respect to the increased tonnage to spend on gear that heavier mechs receive - would a viable solution be a significant limitation of torso twist speed and arm movement with increasing tonnage? Thus it legitimately makes heavier mechs less able to track lighter ones, whilst still enabling slightly heavier mechs to brutalise those immediately below them. Ideally this would be tonnage based, not weight class based (helps the Dragon, Awesome somewhat, we know bottom-tonnage mechs have issues) and might see a return to the food-chain loop we used to have where Assault > Heavy > Medium > Light > Assault (in general terms).

Yeah I like most of this. When I started this game I was under the impression that lights were supposed to be able to take out isolated assaults, and it only made sense. In a team game, each class has to have weaknesses and strengths.

What I've found out playing competitively since then is that light mechs are generally not even relevant to most games. If you go for a wild cap thing then you use them, and sometimes in end-game scenarios they can be useful, but in your typical long range fight that ends in one team eventually pushing and winning or losing the fight....they really are meaningless. (I'm referring to top, competitive 8man games here).

Tonnage limit or BV limits **** me off. I'm not going to play a game where I am a light mech pilot therefore my #1 usage is to free up tonnage for the "real mechs" to go win the game for me. I would either pilot an assault, or leave the game entirely. Every mech, at least every mech class, should be equally important in securing victories. The best team SHOULD JUST BE A BALANCED TEAM. If you take 8 assaults you should lose as much as if you took 8 lights. Those teams should be awful. There should be enough weaknesses of Assaults that no matter what they do, they will usually use against a more balanced team...a 2/2/2/2 team perhaps. That needs to be the end-goal of balance.

Tonnage limits are probably a quit-condition to me, because it is the official announcement that Role Warfare is dead. "Take you f*cking puny sh*t-*** baby mech and be happy it doesn't weigh much. You help the rest of your team by letting the rest of your team use the good mechs." I'll be gone in a second, never to come back.

Tonnage limits are a bandaid over the tough balancing that has to be done. Assault turn speed should be CUT IN HALF. Engines that currently make Assault mechs go 60kph should make them go 40 or 45. Let them keep their armor and weapons. Engines that make lights currently go 150 should make them go 190. Engines that make Mediums currently go 90 should make them go 115. Heavies should be slightly slowed both in their turn speed and movement speed.

The best part about my changes, and about ALL of the balance changes I suggest here and elsewhere is that they are not complex, they are not some strange system. All of my suggestions work with the current systems, and simply adjust baseline values. That goes for my class-balance suggestions above.

Edited by PEEFsmash, 24 July 2013 - 01:13 AM.

[PanzerFurrry]

Yesterday I had an insightful experience of how something is definitely wrong with hit detection.

It was on Tourmaline, teammate was chasing a Jenner, having a target lock on him at all times. They ran into one of those small valleys with one entrance, one exit. I was waiting by the exit, behind the crystal, motionless.
He came straight towards me, no lateral movement, face to face, ~70m range. I unloaded all of my weapons (2x SRM6, 4xML), targeting a CT. A perfect alpha.
After that, he turned around 180° and started running away. Again, no lateral movement, so I unloaded a perfect alpha into his back at ~50 m.
That's about 88 damage, however, his armour was still only yellow, slightly orange on CT, but nowhere near cored or red armour.

In the whole match I spent all my arsenal of 200 SRMs, but I was surprised to only do 144 damage at the end overall.

[xRatas]

SRM has big problems at hit detection, have been for long time. Sometimes they hit with full force, sometimes do almost nothing. I rarely use them, but often be at receiving end. Same with PPCs. This I tend to see quite often the other way around, but several times I've seen the rays hitting my red CT, knowing I'm dead and then been completely suprised that they did no damage to me. And this is most often with heavy mechs, as I prefer to drive those.

Last evening I shot 6 single ERPPC shots to an legged enemy K2 dark red back CT, none of those registered at all. 2 shots were made when he was shut down. Luckily he decided to alpha strike me, and blew himself up, as there was nothing I seemed to be able to do to him.

Spiders and Jenners were around in every game, and it was something like 1 out of ten shots that actually hit them. And I'm really not a horrible shooter either, When HSR was functioning and even before that (you had to use chain fire to establish the rather random lead to target to know where to aim), I never had serious problems hitting a running light. Back then they usually took damage if their paperdoll display flashed.

So it's really not the hitbox issue (spider has bugged ones, agreed), it really is something wrong with the net code.

My ping is usually little under 200ms, might be less of an issue for those that have closer connections?

[Thorqemada]

Fighting Lights in my Cent is like months ago when HSR was not implemented.
Beamlaser = Crap
SRM = Crap
SSRM = Pathetic after the change
AC = Does a visual impact mean i do actual dmg?
PPC(ER) = The Lightning that never hit where you aim for...

I have some success with Pulse Lasers in my Torso.

Edited by Thorqemada, 24 July 2013 - 04:35 AM.

[Jagsmar]

Josef Nader, on 23 July 2013 - 05:56 PM, said:

I would like to point out that spiders have some of the worst hardpoints in the entire game bar none, yet they are currently the only semi-effective light because of bugged hitboxes, and -even then- I almost never see a spider make a significant impact on the match. For all his flying around and circle strafing and dodging, all it takes is a single hit from your average alpha boat to completely leg him.

Other light mechs simply don't exist right now. The spider is the only one with even close to the amount of agility needed to stay alive, and it usually doesn't save him.

Really, you have never noticed that half you team always seems to run off in the wrong direction chasing the spider and you say that has no significant impact on the match.

[Josef Nader]

Jagsmar, on 24 July 2013 - 09:01 AM, said:

Really, you have never noticed that half you team always seems to run off in the wrong direction chasing the spider and you say that has no significant impact on the match.

Nah, the team's I'm on always seem to either ignore the spider for the most part or send it's legs flying into the next county.

[DEMAX51]

First off, Light 'Mechs are absolutely viable - much more so than Mediums. When I'm in my Jenner I often feel that I've been an important part of a victory in every type of match, be it a PUG, a 4-man group or an 8-man competitive drop. My role in 8-mans is different than it is in PUGs or 4-mans and I generally do less damage, but I rip s**t up in PUGs and 4-mans and am usually one of the highest scoring players in the game.

That said, there are still some hitbox issues with some chassis and the developers have explicitly stated that SRMs are not registering hits as well against Lights as they do against heavier classes.

Regarding hitbox issues, the only two I'm aware of are:

The total clusterf**k that are Spider hitboxes (they need some pretty major reworking - I wouldn't call the Spider OP because of this issue, but it does need to be addressed)

And shots to the Jenner's rear torso still get applied to the front CT the majority of the time.

Ravens and Commandos seem pretty decent right now.

[DEMAX51]

PEEFsmash, on 24 July 2013 - 01:12 AM, said:

Tonnage limits are probably a quit-condition to me, because it is the official announcement that Role Warfare is dead. "Take you f*cking puny sh*t-*** baby mech and be happy it doesn't weigh much. You help the rest of your team by letting the rest of your team use the good mechs." I'll be gone in a second, never to come back. Tonnage limits are a bandaid over the tough balancing that has to be done.

Peef, while I agree with most of your suggestions, I can't understand how weight-limited drops would be a bad thing as a Light pilot - at least, for pilots like you and I.

The way I see it, if a Light pilot can help their team by freeing up weight that can be used elsewhere, and if that pilot is as helpful in their Jenner (with regards to damage done as well as capping potential and reconnaissance) as some other pilot in an Assault 'Mech, doesn't that make the Light pilot more valuable? I feel like, once weight-limited dropping is implemented, good Light and Medium pilots are really going to shine.

I don't see it as "helping the team by letting them use the good 'Mechs" (because, as you and I both know, a Jenner in the hands of a skilled pilot is a good 'Mech) but rather helping the team by having as much of an impact as a heavier 'Mech, while only using a fraction of the tonnage.

Edited by DEMAX51, 24 July 2013 - 01:00 PM.

[John MatriX82]

To be honest i've been lately using SRMs quite a bit and the number of completely non-registered hits is usually of a couple if not 3 each match. And I'm speaking of all the rockets in the figure of a standing Atlas with absolutely no damage dealt & without my crosshair painting red.

All issues with "lights" come down to Spiders. A few days ago I was pinned by a good spider pilot, that was backed up by 2 if not 3 enemy LRM boats, ready to shower me as soon as I tried to move out from the cover. We battled for like 9 minutes, with me consistently hitting the spider with my 4 ML's and a couple of ERLLs, and I managed to swap also 2 if not three times my 16 SRMs into him without much joy. Nearing the end of the match, a Jenner approached backing up the spider, he was armor stripped in the ct but with the internals barely yellow (just scratched).. guess what, he died instantly under my fire, to kill the spider I had to wait for him to overheat and that was the end of the brawl.

^Spider hitboxes are broken. SRMs "not hitting much the lights" issue is a mix with the aforementioned total non-detected hits and the absurd new "straight" flying path that spreads damage too much on smaller chassis, while it's better behaving with larger targets. I'd like to have the old flightpath back, at least getting in touch with the enemy awarded you with something more..

[Bront]

PEEFsmash, on 24 July 2013 - 01:12 AM, said:

Tonnage limits are a bandaid over the tough balancing that has to be done. Assault turn speed should be CUT IN HALF. Engines that currently make Assault mechs go 60kph should make them go 40 or 45. Let them keep their armor and weapons. Engines that make lights currently go 150 should make them go 190. Engines that make Mediums currently go 90 should make them go 115. Heavies should be slightly slowed both in their turn speed and movement speed.

I don't know about scaling it down on some and up on others (that's hard to do with the current engine system), but scaling speed up a bit overall (by simply downscaling the maps a bit) would be more helpful the faster you go.

I also agree that twist/arm speed and possibly turning speed in heavier mechs should be a bit slower.

The other thing that isn't implemented as well as I'd like is momentum. Sure, the Atlas will keep going on you if you have no skills, but it's not really that noticable on anything lighter than that. Momentum is a huge movement problem that gives lights and mediums a distinct advantage.

Ultimately, Mediums don't have a great role, at the moment. Need a cap mech or roaming support? Lights are better. Need firepower? Heavies and Assaults are better. Mediums should bridge the Roaming support/Cap mech bridge along the firepower scale towards heavies, but what you have now is the Cicada that wants to be a light mech, and most of the rest which either need to aim at being light mech hunters or find ways to hide among the big guys.

I do also think they needs to scale the heavy and assault mech sizes up a bit, or the mediums down a bit. A reduced profile along with some increased agility would help mediums greatly.

[Lugh]

Coralld, on 23 July 2013 - 06:54 PM, said:

Agreed, the Spider is really the only problem, the rest of the Light class are for the most part fine.

They are more fine than the spider, but still benefit from far too often WTFery with HSR..

[DEMAX51]

Lugh, on 24 July 2013 - 12:47 PM, said:

They are more fine than the spider, but still benefit from far too often WTFery with HSR..

HSR and hitbox issues are two completely different things. Sure, HSR needs to be fixed, but those issues apply to all 'Mechs, not just Lights - and the biggest problems with HSR seem to result from players with 100+ pings more than anything else. HSR problems affect 50 KPH Atlases and 150 KPH Jenners alike.

Of course, when you've got a laggy player piloting a Spider the HSR and hitbox issues are compounded, but they're still two different issues.

Edited by DEMAX51, 24 July 2013 - 12:56 PM.