63 replies to this topic

[Royalewithcheese]

The whole concept of pinpoint alpha as the source of all balance evil always makes me wonder if people somehow missed the splatcat whine.

Edited by Royalewithcheese, 13 August 2013 - 04:33 PM.

[Xanquil]

It isn't a matter of players being "wimpy" it is a matter of one shot kills are meant to be rare, not common place as they are now.

[Joseph Mallan]

Xanquil, on 13 August 2013 - 04:36 PM, said:

It isn't a matter of players being "wimpy" it is a matter of one shot kills are meant to be rare, not common place as they are now.

Not if you are a Light or a lightly armored Medium! An yes it is wimpy. Light Mechs should die in a loud and gratuitous fashion. Mediums should at least scream before dying. 35 points is nothing Unless you are a >40 ton Mech. Then it should in fact be very painful.

[Xanquil]

35points isn't that bad as long as it isn't guaranteed to all hit the same place. I'de go so far as to say 60 damage wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for pinpoint alphas. It would be a massive wallop but not instant death.

[Sniper061]

Royalewithcheese, on 13 August 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

The whole concept of pinpoint alpha as the source of all balance evil always makes me wonder if people somehow missed the splatcat whine.

One of the big problems with the splatcat was that there was a bug with SRMs and JJ's. You could hit your JJ's before firing and the SRM6's would have a stupidly tight cone of fire. So you could put most of that damage into a single area of a mech. Also with the JJs, you took a lot less damage from both poor aim and netcode than you would on the ground. Put those two things together and you got the splatcats. Annoying as hell and almost guaranteed to kill you if one got the drop on you.

[One Medic Army]

Royalewithcheese, on 13 August 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

The whole concept of pinpoint alpha as the source of all balance evil always makes me wonder if people somehow missed the splatcat whine.

Splatcats never really bothered me, what bothered me was the completely borked splash damage coding.

As to the actual topic:
Anything past ~30dmg from a single trigger pull in the same postage stamp and you start dealing with things like 1-shotting mechs (headshots, lights)

Seeing as we're in a no-respawn mode, no matter what it should require at least 2 hits to kill any one mech strictly from a gameplay perspective.

Which isn't to say alphas should be capped at 30, it's accurate alphas that should be capped. If you want to unload 6xSRM6s they're not all going to hit the same place, so it's not a pinpoint damage issue.

Edited by One Medic Army, 13 August 2013 - 06:09 PM.

[Sephlock]

How Much Pinpoint Damage Is Too Much?

Royalewithcheese, on 13 August 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

The whole concept of pinpoint alpha as the source of all balance evil always makes me wonder if people somehow missed the splatcat whine.

We didn't miss it, we just knew the whiners were morons.

And they proved it, when it came to dual AC/20s.

To them, every single situation in which their own stupidity or just plain bad luck has doomed them is this.

Edited by Sephlock, 13 August 2013 - 10:20 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

WoB will be bringing that level of OP in 25-30 years.

[Khobai]

Quote

The whole concept of pinpoint alpha as the source of all balance evil always makes me wonder if people somehow missed the splatcat whine.

Splatcats were never really overpowered though. Because they only had a 270m range and limited ammo. The problem with ERPPCs is that they have upto a 1620m range and dont use ammo.

[Sir Ratburger]

Possibly make the cooldown times on 1 hit large damage weapons a bit longer, it wont fix the sniping but it will put these builds at a severe disadvantage when battling up close and against fast mechs.

I think they have done well by increasing the heat generated by firing lots of the same weapons at once.

[YueFei]

In theory, you could let mechs run around with 200+ pinpoint damage and the game would still be a contest of skill... it just wouldn't be the same kind of game that was advertised, though. It'd be more like tank combat, with the first-to-see and first-to-shoot usually winning.

The question is not best answered as a damage threshold, but rather as a question of how long do we want combat to last? The current pin-point damage mechs are capable of allows for two/three shots to occur. Is that what we want?

This is supposed to be a thinking man's shooter, right? A good chess match can last dozens of moves. For me, personally, I'd be happy of a mech duel between mechs of the same weight class at least lasted a dozen exchanges of fire, assuming both pilots are crack shots. Because let's face it, there are some really damned accurate pilots in this game, and mech durability should be balanced against what those guys are capable of.


If anything, requiring more shots on-target rewards skill and consistent aim, widening the skill gap. As it is, any fool like me can get lucky with a couple of shots and end someone's match early.

[Royalewithcheese]

Khobai, on 13 August 2013 - 07:22 PM, said:

Splatcats were never really overpowered though. Because they only had a 270m range and limited ammo. The problem with ERPPCs is that they have upto a 1620m range and dont use ammo.

I agree with the splatcat never really being OP. My feelings re: pinpoint are more that, although pinpoint damage is unquestionably good, I think its dominance right now is more a function of SRMs/SSRMs/Lasers being weak and hit detection being better than it is about pinpoint being strong.

[3rdworld]

Khobai, on 13 August 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

20 is the most that should be allowed. Anything beyond that pushes the limits of what battletech armor values can handle.

Heres a fun fact.

A Battletech AC/20 would do 20 damage with non buffed armor values.

The same AC/20 to do the same amount of damage would need to hit for 40 in MWO.

[Blackadder]

I have no issue with pinpoint damage, so i am fine with the 6 ppc stalker. My issue is with the ability for players to maintain that damage as standard DPS For extended periods of time, because it negates the DPS style weapons that fire fast but do less damage, and makes large alpha strikes with any weapon the way to play the game for the most part.

If a player wants to choose to shoot 4 ER PPC he should be allowed to, but he also should not be allowed to do it every 4 seconds. In WOT you have high alpha strike damage weapons on tank destroyers, which are offset by long reload times. in other games like BF3 and COD sniper weapons are good at long range but suffer at short range vs other weapons. This game needs to address its reload rate and range issues on most weapons rather then create simple band aid fixes that players will constantly get around, and that will have to be readjusted every time PGI adds something new to the game long term.

[One Medic Army]

3rdworld, on 13 August 2013 - 07:38 PM, said:

Heres a fun fact. A Battletech AC/20 would do 20 damage with non buffed armor values. The same AC/20 to do the same amount of damage would need to hit for 40 in MWO.

Which is fine in TT, since only in RPG games do people only play a single light/medium mech.

Fun Fact, our GM put us up against a Hunch-G in a test-match, we each had a single mech, mine being the heaviest at 55tons.
I made him promise afterwards never to put us up against AC/20s until we had heavy mechs after that.

AC/20s in tabletop are damn powerful, too powerful to really use when you get 1 player per mech, and half of the mechs fielded will be killed or heavily damaged after taking a single hit and there's no respawn.

[Joseph Mallan]

Hogwash Army. The majority of us are adults who have been gaming for years(33 years personally). If we cannot handle getting put down like a rabid dog some times, we should not be gaming!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 13 August 2013 - 09:04 PM.

[One Medic Army]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 August 2013 - 09:02 PM, said:

Hogwash Army. The majority of us are adults who have been gaming for years(33 years personally). If we cannot handle getting put down like a rabid dog some times, we should not be gaming!

It's a matter of having a battle that is of an appropriate length.
Nobody enjoys getting 1shot, which is why nobody plays light mechs when an AC/20 can 1shot them and there are AC/20s around.

[Joseph Mallan]

One Medic Army, on 13 August 2013 - 09:13 PM, said:

It's a matter of having a battle that is of an appropriate length.
Nobody enjoys getting 1shot, which is why nobody plays light mechs when an AC/20 can 1shot them and there are AC/20s around.

Nobody enjoys dying, but it happens. Nobody enjoys scoring<100 damage, but it happens. The Battle will still go on if I die at the end of a skilled shot.

So I shouldn't want to pilot my Jenner(S) cause a Jager40 could (read-WILL)kill me in one salvo? Like a Hunchback can on TT? Whether we like it or not should not be an issue. That logic, I should never want to play BattleTech Cause I can die by a single shot at any time.

[Khobai]

Quote

Hogwash Army. The majority of us are adults who have been gaming for years(33 years personally). If we cannot handle getting put down like a rabid dog some times, we should not be gaming!

This isnt tabletop... you dont need a 10+ to hit a light mech with an AC/20 in the first place and then have maybe a 1/3 chance of hitting one of the locations that will instakill it.

In MWO you can automatically hit wherever you want if your aim is good. Precise aiming makes weapons considerably more lethal, which is why pinpoint alphas are such a huge problem. Although if we had a proper respawn gamemode then it wouldnt be nearly as much of a problem.

Quote

So I shouldn't want to pilot my Jenner(S) cause a Jager40 could (read-WILL)kill me in one salvo? Like a Hunchback can on TT? Whether we like it or not should not be an issue. That logic, I should never want to play BattleTech Cause I can die by a single shot at any time.

Not if your mech stays locked in the match for 10 minutes after you die. Thats not fun for new players. Thats why we should just have respawns. That keeps everyone involved in the game and there is no real downside to it since we could still have hardcore mode for players who want to play without respawns.

Edited by Khobai, 13 August 2013 - 09:36 PM.

[One Medic Army]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 August 2013 - 09:26 PM, said:

Nobody enjoys dying, but it happens. Nobody enjoys scoring<100 damage, but it happens. The Battle will still go on if I die at the end of a skilled shot.

So I shouldn't want to pilot my Jenner(S) cause a Jager40 could (read-WILL)kill me in one salvo? Like a Hunchback can on TT? Whether we like it or not should not be an issue. That logic, I should never want to play BattleTech Cause I can die by a single shot at any time.

In battletech you're either in an RPG setting, where your GM's job is partially to prevent you from getting 1-shot, or you're playing an entire side where it doesn't matter if a single 1 of your mechs dies in 1shot.