55 replies to this topic

[Hotthedd]

The problem is not the amount of armor on the CT. The problem is instant convergent pinpoint group fire. Remove that, and the armor is fine.

[MrZakalwe]

Typhoon Storm 2142, on 14 August 2013 - 04:36 AM, said:

Assumptions? You think I'll shoot a Stalkers arms first? If I see a Centurion coming, I'll waste his right arm, then destroy his reactor. Stalkers are different. I like to headshot them, because they have a slooow torso movement. It depends on the 'Mech, but I mostly go for their biggest weapon first. Don't assume that you beat me that easily, tough guy. I'm a hell of a shot. You will just overheat with your noob PPC build before doing any serious damage. Sure, if you have teammates covering you, it's easy to Pilot a Stalker. So easy, that any noob can do it.

21 DHSs says I don't have major heat issues And Stalker Torso movement is the same as anybody else at that engine speed. But here is my point- if you are aiming at anything but my CT you are doing it wrong- my side torsos take some killing and you've got to get both of them to remove me as a damage threat (removing one wont half my DPS because it will remove less than half of my DHSs so the remaining PPCs will fire more frequently).

So you are again left in the situation where aiming for my legs, arms or side torso is the sub optimal choice. Not worthless but not optimal and if you want to aim at me at all you will present your center torso as a target as I will have to to aim at you making targeting the center torso as highest priority the only logical choice for either of us.

EDIT: For the record I don't take your claim about headshotting Stalkers very seriously, with any chin lift at all the Stalkers head hit box is crazily small and probably classifies as a bug (as projectiles have width meaning many of the higher damage ones are nearly impossible to aim at your head without clipping part of your nose. As you lift your chin in a stalker to make people more likely to hit your left and right torso anyway you will probably be doing this as standard.

Edited by MrZakalwe, 14 August 2013 - 05:45 AM.

[Fire and Salt]

CT armor doesn't need a buff. Twisting your mech so that damage is spread out is one of the classic tactics of MW. Sure, it doesnt work in every mech (catapult, jenner) but seeing how low you can get your health percentage before you finally explode is a fun part of this game.

Sure, I always get cored when using my CPLT-K2, but there are other mechs that are great at twisting to absorb damage.


P.S. If you always aim for the CT, you are doing it wrong. Because even if you always aim for the CT, you (or a teammate) will eventually hit an arm, leg, or side torso by accident. if you try and core a stalker that has a crit side torso but still has lots of CT armor, you are going to get hit by almost twice as many weapons than you would if you blew off half of his mech since the opportunity arose.

None of the players I've seen in game are so good that they can hit CT every time. Take advantage of the weak points that appear - even if the original plan was to shoot CT only.

I carry the target info gathering module quite often. The entire point of that module is for identifying the times when you should shoot at places other than the CT. (Well, also to remind you to stay 500m away from that AC40 Jager)

[Tombstoner]

Your forgetting that PGI chose to keep TT stats when converting to skill based targeting. this choice perverted TT interactions between size, speed, armor, damage, hit probability.... basically everything and then called it good. this was the easy but wrong way to build a game. it lacks control over important tuning elements, hence why the game has balance issues. HSR affects everyone not just lights. but light benefit more because of the way armor was miss aligned.

Requesting a CT buff is reasonable. people have no concept over how much light where buffed and how assaults where nerfed. but people are happy with the state of the game not realizing that in a pure min max situation energy only lights are really OP.

one tone of armor is not the same on a commando as it is on an atlas. They fundamental do not offer the same amount of protection. its not as simple as 10 point of armor stops a ppc. Survivability is much higher for the 20 ton mech then the 100 ton. if you dont be leave this your playing your light wrong. you never attack head on. you go for the rear. its not about the size of the alpha its all about the DPS and 12 lights can sustain far more then 12 assaults in a 12 x light vs assault head to head.

Rear armor is easy to hit and very thin. wolf packs rule. This is why armor needs to be rescaled across the board.

[Fire and Salt]

Skill based targeting of the CT is negated by skill based evasion and twisting.

If skill only impacted your ability to aim, but not evade, high level matches would be all CT coring, and low level matches would be spread out damage. Reality tends to be the opposite of this.


Ton for ton, a light is better than an assault mech. 2 jenners and a spider will destroy an atlas. But lights are not more powerful than assault mechs 1v1. The most competitive 12 man teams tend to use 10 assault mech and a few fast movers.

[Tombstoner]

Twisting your torso is a gimmick. it works cause people are too eager to wait 2 seconds and fire. to beat it all you need to do is wait till your weapons are ready to fire as you torso change back, i'm aiming at your CT. If CT areas are the same size things are even but the way PGI has scaled the mechs alters the frontal area of the CT. this leads to discrepancy's in frontal CT area between mechs and why torso rotations works.... all of this must be take into consideration in order to acheave parity due to scale and artistic choices in mech design other wise some mechs are DOE and severely hampered by something that should be taken into account in game design. its not hence some mech CTs are fundamental stronger then others...

Min maxers know this and call it skill... just look at the stalker. mech profile maters. Saying that skill based targeting is completely negated by evasion and toro twisting is simply not true. some mech designs are better then others. your just happy you hit the light mech where as if you hit the left or right torso of the atlas by accident your pissed cause you missed the CT and wasted a shot. the atlas is so easy to hit compared to a light its not funny. hence its armor is fundamental weaker even if you torso change. dont attack someone whos targeting you. you target the weakest spot available.

Player skill level alters the way they attack.... low levels allow the ct to be exposed and attack strong positions 2+ mechs
smarter player work the angles. damage gets spread out.

The way the game is built doesn't take into account lots of factors that influence survivability hence there are differences and lights benefit more then assaults. The equations are not balanced. all mechs should be competitive in a well designed game. but this is simply not true. to fix this requires a complete rebuild of the game. not gong happen or specific tweets to address issues.

Learning to deal with and excelling in a game system that has fundamental design flaws to its mechs limits fun. I can see wehre the game has design issues and its shows its self in way that players are learning to compensate for and state the all you need to do is L2L. im saying your compensating for a broken design. hence the need for a CT buff. that will increase survivability in a way that enhances enjoyment via tactical enjoyment not just big alpha builds to the CT. casue that the best way to kill a mech. other then a light.

in a 1:1 fight with an atlas give me a 4mg spider any day.... i'll win as i have many times before.

[Leafia Barrett]

CT internals need a buff. Leave the armor alone, make the internals harder to destroy.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Well, we are stuck with certain elements in the game for now:

• weapons don't seem like they're gonna change too much from where they are at right now,
  
• our DPS seems like it's generally gonna remain high,
  
• Convergence elements aren't going to be addressed for a while now,
  
• and it seems like the devs are currently fine with our Heat Capacity being way too high (capable of being ~50.00 to ~70.00).

So that leaves us to make suggestions for changing up Armor I guess. Therefore, I'd like to look at splitting up the current shared Armor setup we have with our torso sections, not just upping CT armor alone or only buffing Internal HP.


I originally posted the idea here, so adding a link and spoiler describing the way I was thinking about how to boost Armor and make the torso sections separate from each other. The added armor capacity could then make the choice be between that extra ton of ammo, heat sink or raising armor to the new higher max, in theory.

Spoiler

The idea is twofold, to raise the Max Armor value by the amount separating front and back torso sections from sharing armor points between them, and a slight tweak to Internal Structure values.

So for example, a Commando currently has 24 points to share been Front and Back Side Torsos and 32 for front and back CT.

The idea is to set the front side torsos to a cap to the full value of 24 and the rear side to half, so 12 for the Commando. CT would then be 32 front and 16 back. So that change would increase the potential max armor to 218 from 178, a possible increase of 40 armor points.



Here is a Chart brainstorming how the idea would look applied to other mechs, by tons, currently in MWO (just missing 20 ton mechs and I left in 55 ton by accident).

Spoiler

So in order to gain a benefit from the raised Max, you still need to spend on tonnage to pull it off. And if my math is right it comes to a ~22% to 24% potential boost in armor, and an increase in needed tons from 1.3 to 4.6 to reach the higher max value for the different weights.

Also, with the idea, there is room to provide mech specific buffs.

For example, the four Hunchback variants (4G, 4H, 4J and 4P) could have an asymmetrical distribution, that gives more armor to the front right torso and the right internal structure, since it has more surface area and is bigger than the left side.

For example,

Armor Values

RT _ 60, CT _ 64, LT _ 48
RRT 12, RCT 32, RLT 24

Internal Structure Values

RT 48, CT 48, LT 24

And for quick reference here is a chart calculating how it would look adding the armor in 0.5 increments up to 24 tons.

Spoiler

Last idea with current Internal Structure Values what if we provide like a 25% boost to most of the mech from current numbers? Again it's just brain storming and can be restricted to certain classes as needed, if the idea could help.

Here is a chart of what I mean.

Spoiler

I wasn't sure about the head, but adding 3 seemed okay there.

And numbers can always be changed, since the idea is to improve gameplay, hopefully without causing further imbalances. I guess I can also make a thread, but it would be about Armor also, so I'll wait to hear from the OP or a mod if I should do that or not.

Edit: Grammar

Edited by Praetor Shepard, 14 August 2013 - 02:34 PM.

[Tombstoner]

Praetor Shepard, on 14 August 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

Well, we are stuck with certain elements in the game for now:

• weapons don't seem like they're gonna change too much from where they are at right now,
  
• our DPS seems like it's generally gonna remain high,
  
• Convergence elements aren't going to be addressed for a while now,
  
• and it seems like the devs are currently fine with our Heat Capacity being way too high (capable of being ~50.00 to ~70.00).

So that leaves us to make suggestions for changing up Armor I guess. Therefore, I'd like to look at splitting up the current shared Armor setup we have with our torso sections, not just upping CT armor alone or only buffing Internal HP.



I originally posted the idea here, so adding a link and spoiler describing the way I was thinking about how to boost Armor and make the torso sections separate from each other. The added armor capacity could then make the choice be between that extra ton of ammo, heat sink or raising armor to the new higher max, in theory.

Spoiler

The idea is twofold, to raise the Max Armor value by the amount separating front and back torso sections from sharing armor points between them, and a slight tweak to Internal Structure values.

So for example, a Commando currently has 24 points to share been Front and Back Side Torsos and 32 for front and back CT.

The idea is to set the front side torsos to a cap to the full value of 24 and the rear side to half, so 12 for the Commando. CT would then be 32 front and 16 back. So that change would increase the potential max armor to 218 from 178, a possible increase of 40 armor points.



Here is a Chart brainstorming how the idea would look applied to other mechs, by tons, currently in MWO (just missing 20 ton mechs and I left in 55 ton by accident).

Spoiler

So in order to gain a benefit from the raised Max, you still need to spend on tonnage to pull it off. And if my math is right it comes to a ~22% to 24% potential boost in armor, and an increase in needed tons from 1.3 to 4.6 to reach the higher max value for the different weights.

Also, with the idea, there is room to provide mech specific buffs.

For example, the four Hunchback variants (4G, 4H, 4J and 4P) could have an asymmetrical distribution, that gives more armor to the front right torso and the right internal structure, since it has more surface area and is bigger than the left side.

For example,

Armor Values

RT _ 60, CT _ 64, LT _ 48
RRT 12, RCT 32, RLT 24

Internal Structure Values

RT 48, CT 48, LT 24

And for quick reference here is a chart calculating how it would look adding the armor in 0.5 increments up to 24 tons.

Spoiler

Last idea with current Internal Structure Values what if we provide like a 25% boost to most of the mech from current numbers? Again it's just brain storming and can be restricted to certain classes as needed, if the idea could help.

Here is a chart of what I mean.

Spoiler

I wasn't sure about the head, but adding 3 seemed okay there.

And numbers can always be changed, since the idea is to improve gameplay, hopefully without causing further imbalances. I guess I can also make a thread, but it would be about Armor also, so I'll wait to hear from the OP or a mod if I should do that or not.

Edit: Grammar

the closer we come to sept 17 the more i think weve been wasting our time posting.

[Fire and Salt]

Tombstoner, on 14 August 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

Twisting your torso is a gimmick. it works cause people are too eager to wait 2 seconds and fire. to beat it all you need to do is wait till your weapons are ready to fire as you torso change back

• Unless they are retreating to cover... then you should probably shoot, since you arent going to hit that CT...

• Or if they are constantly twisting and your weapons recycle faster... might be good to get that arm out of the way. since you know that they are going to use it as a shield again...

• Or if you are taking a potshot or a jumpsnipe - now or never...




Show me a game of high-level players where every single shot hits the CT, and I will believe you.

Until then - CT shots are Plan A, but not the only plan.

(Actually - not even always plan A. If you know a mech has an XL, a side torso is a faster kill. Since its impossible to twist and shield the legs effectively, legs are a faster kill sometime too.)

Tombstoner, on 14 August 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

If CT areas are the same size things are even but the way PGI has scaled the mechs alters the frontal area of the CT. this leads to discrepancy's in frontal CT area between mechs and why torso rotations works....

Yea, but then there is the simple fact that not all mechs look the same. Even if PGI tried to make all hitboxes "equal" they couldn't do it. Take the Jager, for example - lets say you want to change the hitboxes so that you can't twist to avoid damage. It has less of a nose than a catapult. Which means it is going to be easier to twist away to avoid CT damage. They could make the Jager CT twice as wide, and you could still avoid 100% of CT damage damage by twisting 90 degrees - unless they shot the little fin on top of the mech... (Not that you wouldn't get cored more often)

Yes - I want the Catapult CT to be smaller. Add a bit of Stalker influence in there, And balance should certainly be a goal. But you cant make the hitboxes identical, unless you make all the 'mechs identical in appearance as well.

There has to be some compromise of the identical hitbox plan, otherwise all mechs will have to look the same.

Edited by Fire and Salt, 16 August 2013 - 04:39 PM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

The idea moves away from TT, but here is another way to approach distributing armor and internal crit slots, that is worth checking out: http://mwomercs.com/...__fromsearch__1

[Khobai]

Quote

The problem is not the amount of armor on the CT. The problem is instant convergent pinpoint group fire. Remove that, and the armor is fine.

While Im in 100% total agreement with you, the unfortunate reality is that increasing CT armor is a much easier fix that could be implemented within one patch cycle. While a fix for convergence would likely take many months.

[Hotthedd]

Khobai, on 17 August 2013 - 04:40 AM, said:

While Im in 100% total agreement with you, the unfortunate reality is that increasing CT armor is a much easier fix that could be implemented within one patch cycle. While a fix for convergence would likely take many months.

The thing is: I do not believe increasing the CT armor is actually a fix. It is at best a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. It does nothing to solve the fact that pinpoint group fire and segmented hit locations are two mechanics that do not work together, period.

If simplicity is what you desire, there are two simple fixes: Either remove group fire from the game until a better fix is implemented; OR remove convergence from the game until a better fix is implemented. Neither introduces any randomness to the game.

[Xanquil]

Hotthedd, on 14 August 2013 - 04:56 AM, said:

The problem is not the amount of armor on the CT. The problem is instant convergent pinpoint group fire. Remove that, and the armor is fine.

This right here. Pinpoint alphas are the problem. If the armor is changed it won't change that.

[xCico]

Give 20-30 extra points to CT and 5-10 extra points to side torsoes.

[Khobai]

Quote

I do not believe increasing the CT armor is actually a fix. It is at best a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. It does nothing to solve the fact that pinpoint group fire and segmented hit locations are two mechanics that do not work together, period.

Youre right it doesnt fix the underlying problem. But it does still increase mech survivability. Which in a way is a fix. Far from an ideal fix though.