81 replies to this topic

[I3lackI2ogue]

i and many people have been preaching this for months.so im going to say this is a great idea, maybe now that PGI has seen how badly their "phantom heat" idea tanked, they will finally give the players something they want ( meaning variance and purposes among the variants ) instead of dumb arbitrary things like 3Pv

[Alreech]

The Mechwarrior 4 Hard Point system is better than the actual MWO Hard Point System, but it also have his disadvantages.
The best solution would be IMHO to change the Hardpoint System complete with Light, Medium and Heavy Hardpoints:

Light Hardpoints should be able to mount only Light Weapons:

• Machine Guns
  
• Small Lasers
  
• Medium Lasers
  
• Small Pulse Lasers
  
• Medium Pulse Lasers
  
• Flamer

Medium Hardpoints should be able to mount Light and Medium Weapons:

• AC2
  
• AC5
  
• Ultra AC5
  
• Large Laser
  
• Large Pulse Laser
  
• ER-Large Laser
  
• PPC

Heavy Hardpoints should be able to mount any Weapons, including Heavy Weapons:

• AC 10
  
• LB-X AC 10
  
• AC 20
  
• Gauss Rifle

The benefit:

You can't upgrade Machine Guns with Gauss Rifles or Small Lasers with PPCs, but you can change a PPC to an AC 5, something what isn't possible in Mechwarrior 4.

Edited by Alreech, 17 August 2013 - 12:52 PM.

[Farpenoodle]

Hardpoints won't fix pinpoint alphas. :|

[Sybreed]

Farpenoodle, on 17 August 2013 - 01:32 PM, said:

Hardpoints won't fix pinpoint alphas. :|

no, but until some mechs like the warhawk or the annihilator come into play, it'll be a lot more fun and battles a lot more chaotic.

[Farpenoodle]

Oh believe me, I wouldn't mind MW4 style hardpoints at all. I personally liked that system a lot. However, I also know a lot of people hated the **** out of that system. I think what we have is a nice enough compromise.

I just don't think one should offer it as a solution to the same problem that heat penalties is trying to fix. Because it won't fix it.

[Sybreed]

Farpenoodle, on 17 August 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

Oh believe me, I wouldn't mind MW4 style hardpoints at all. I personally liked that system a lot. However, I also know a lot of people hated the **** out of that system. I think what we have is a nice enough compromise.

I just don't think one should offer it as a solution to the same problem that heat penalties is trying to fix. Because it won't fix it.

the problem with the current system is that it makes it too easy to boat large energy weapons. These weapons don't weight that much and don't produce so much heat in MWO. Pick an assault with 4 medium lasers and what will you do ? Upgrade most of them to large lasers or PPCs, that's why the system is borked.

[Xanquil]

Neither of these ideas fixes the pinpoint alpha problem. The only way to remove the pinpoint alpha problem is to remove the pinpoint alpha. Plain and simple. As for boating large number of weapons, if there wasn't pinpoint alpha it wouldn't be an issue. The heat system needing to be reworked is an entirely different issue.

[Captain Midnight]

what if we added scaling heat penalties, so say the first shot at 0-25% heat is pinpoint, but convergance becomes a function of heat. For example at 75% heat your weapons would converge 150% slower, aka your four PPCs would cross wildly in flight to the target and you'd probably only hit with 1 or 2, and it would be extremely lucky for those 1-2 to hit the same component?

[Sybreed]

Captain Midnight, on 17 August 2013 - 06:25 PM, said:

what if we added scaling heat penalties, so say the first shot at 0-25% heat is pinpoint, but convergance becomes a function of heat. For example at 75% heat your weapons would converge 150% slower, aka your four PPCs would cross wildly in flight to the target and you'd probably only hit with 1 or 2, and it would be extremely lucky for those 1-2 to hit the same component?

that makes as much sense as current heat penalties. Plus, if your first shot is always 100% pinpoint accurate, we're not really fixing anything now are we?

[El Bandito]

MustrumRidcully, on 17 August 2013 - 04:30 AM, said:

Both ideas are bad balancing tools. The heat scale system is completely arbitrary and needlessly complicated, nerfs builds that didn'T need a nerf, and doesn't address all the problematic builds either. For such a complex system I'd expect a lot better from it. Hard points as limitaiton are okay to preserve the identity of a mech on the battlefield, but don't believe that they actually serve to balance. Mechwarrior IV allowed plenty of boating, and I am not even sure how well it was used to replicate stock mechs. But if you actually take stock mech configs, you'll find too many boatable mechs in the TT. (More precisely, pretty much any assault boat will automatically become an issue.) You could just not ever add these to the game, but I'd rather have them part of the game and not broken. I think we have a choice between cholera, the flu, and ice cream, but this thread only deals with cholera and flu.

Tell me this then, Mustrum. Which TT boating stock mech will cause such griefing? Out of my head I cannot name a single "lore relevant" (which means Bane is out, no one cares about it) mech that is in 3050/51 which can boat but has significant drawbacks such as lower arm position, or lower rotational speed, or even large CT. Mechs such as the Thunder Hawk will need to expose themselves a lot just to use it's "cheese build"--not to mention the build is heavy as hell and is akin to carrying 3 high explosives ready to blow. Mechs like the Awesome and Warhawk got HUGE center torso in addition to its lower arm location.

When you look at it, TT boating mechs are pretty much balanced even with hard point limitation. Only reason we saw so many boating in MW4 was due to the facts:

1. Lasers dealt their full damage instantly--which will not happen here.

2. Players can cram in multiple smaller weapons into a single large weapon slot--which will not happen here.


Anyway, if we are to choose between ghost heat and hardpoint limitations, I will choose hardpoint limitations, though I am certain that current PGI will not be able to implement it effectively.
I still think better heat penalty when over 40% heat, coupled with convergence, is the key to the whole thing AND make the game feel more BT-like.

Sybreed, on 17 August 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

that makes as much sense as current heat penalties. Plus, if your first shot is always 100% pinpoint accurate, we're not really fixing anything now are we?

That's why we need delayed convergence over long ranges in addition to heat penalties. If you want to make you 1st shot to be dead on, you need to work for it.

Edited by El Bandito, 17 August 2013 - 10:29 PM.

[Bad Andy]

plenty of people still use 4 PPCs, they just chain fire them or put them in 2 groups

[El Bandito]

Bad Andy, on 17 August 2013 - 09:34 PM, said:

plenty of people still use 4 PPCs, they just chain fire them or put them in 2 groups

Yep, if PGI is trying to fix snipe meta, they are doing it wrong.

[MustrumRidcully]

El Bandito, on 17 August 2013 - 09:28 PM, said:

Tell me this then, Mustrum. Which TT boating stock mech will cause such griefing? Out of my head I cannot name a single "lore relevant" (which means Bane is out, no one cares about it) mech that is in 3050/51 which can boat but has significant drawbacks such as lower arm position, or lower rotational speed, or even large CT. Mechs such as the Thunder Hawk will need to expose themselves a lot just to use it's "cheese build"--not to mention the build is heavy as hell and is akin to carrying 3 high explosives ready to blow. Mechs like the Awesome and Warhawk got HUGE center torso in addition to its lower arm location.

As far as I know, the Cataphract is part of the PPC/Gauss Sniper meta, and it has low slung arms.

Without actually any of the potential mechs being implemented, we can't know how bad their hit boxes will be.

High slung weapons are a great advantage, but I'd argue you'll manage without them in a 100 ton mech if it gives you a heatless 45+ damage alpha. Especially if you don't need to worry anymore about mechs with high-slung arms that deliver similar alphas (heatless or not.), since those are gone thanks to hard point limitations.
Remember, the Gaussapult did not benefit from high-slung weapons. Its weapons were torso mounted. Yet it was extremely popular in the pre DHS, pre Stalker and pre Jagermech times.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 18 August 2013 - 02:51 AM.

[Bad Andy]

i think the best solution is just to make short range weapons superior at short range. The simplest would be to greatly increase the firing cooldown of ppc and gauss.

[El Bandito]

MustrumRidcully, on 18 August 2013 - 02:50 AM, said:

As far as I know, the Cataphract is part of the PPC/Gauss Sniper meta, and it has low slung arms. Without actually any of the potential mechs being implemented, we can't know how bad their hit boxes will be. High slung weapons are a great advantage, but I'd argue you'll manage without them in a 100 ton mech if it gives you a heatless 45+ damage alpha. Especially if you don't need to worry anymore about mechs with high-slung arms that deliver similar alphas (heatless or not.), since those are gone thanks to hard point limitations. Remember, the Gaussapult did not benefit from high-slung weapons. Its weapons were torso mounted. Yet it was extremely popular in the pre DHS, pre Stalker and pre Jagermech times.

1. Two words. JUMP JETS.

Poptarting is what is making Cataphract a good sniper. Thunder Hawk or Awesome does not have JJs.

2. Go to Sarna and take a real good look at Warhawk. See the big hat on top of the cockpit that screams "Bullet Magnet"? There is no way PGI can remove it and keep it looking like a Warhawk. In anycase, Awesome CT argument still stands.

3. Thunder Hawk arms will be bullet magnet as well since those 3xGauss are like ticking timebomb and we know it. Pretty easy to disable them too since TH must present at least one arm even when torso twisting.

4. Gausspult was popular only because it was the only mech that can have dual Gauss at that time AND Gauss had 10 HP than 3 currently. Also, Gausspult torso weapons are higher elevated than that of similar sized arm mounts.
Jagers are now is flat out superior choice for dual Gauss boating. Hell, FB can even add one PPC/ERPPC for even better sniping capability.

5. TH is slow as hell in close range thanks to its default build, and have plenty of exposed places to shoot at when returning fire from long range. If we get hardpoint restriction, it will not be able to mount PPCs in its Medium Laser slots and become even more ridiculous.

Lastly, there is not enough pre-3051 variants to include TH in the first place because we don't have Arrow IV, yet.

Edited by El Bandito, 18 August 2013 - 04:45 AM.

[Ralgas]

El Bandito, on 18 August 2013 - 04:23 AM, said:

1. Two words. JUMP JETS.

Poptarting is what is making Cataphract a good sniper. Thunder Hawk or Awesome does not have JJs.

2. Go to Sarna and take a real good look at Warhawk. See the big hat on top of the cockpit that screams "Bullet Magnet"? There is no way PGI can remove it and keep it looking like a Warhawk. In anycase, Awesome CT argument still stands.

3. Thunder Hawk arms will be bullet magnet as well since those 3xGauss are like ticking timebomb and we know it. Pretty easy to disable them too since TH must present at least one arm even when torso twisting.

4. Gausspult was popular only because it was the only mech that can have dual Gauss at that time AND Gauss had 10 HP than 3 currently. Also, Gausspult torso weapons are higher elevated than that of similar sized arm mounts.
Jagers are now is flat out superior choice for dual Gauss boating. Hell, FB can even add one PPC/ERPPC for even better sniping capability.

5. Personally, I prefer take on 3xGauss TH any day over Quad PPC Stalker. At least TH is slow as hell in close range thanks to its default build and have plenty of exposed places to shoot at when returning fire from long range.

but if you can only return half or less of the damage it's still a pretty one sided fight. triple gauss is still throwing 22 dmg @1000 meters. same as an erppc awesome would be throwing 20-30 @ 810. with restricted hard points show me anything that can throw that kind of damage back accurately at either mech at that range. The only one that springs to mind is a jm6-dd and it could only pull 10-15 depending on how the system worked

low slung arms or not, we'll see awesome hill poppers become the meta with a1/stalker lrms not far behind to smash anyone silly enough to not stick to the meta.

[MustrumRidcully]

Quote

4. Gausspult was popular only because it was the only mech that can have dual Gauss at that time AND Gauss had 10 HP than 3 currently. Also, Gausspult torso weapons are higher elevated than that of similar sized arm mounts.
Jagers are now is flat out superior choice for dual Gauss boating. Hell, FB can even add one PPC/ERPPC for even better sniping capability.

I maintain that the only real nerf the Gauss Rifle "suffered" from was Double Heat Sinks. The hit point/explosion issue is not as big as some people make it seem. But DHS suddenly made a lot of more heat intensive weapons competitive with it. And not just sniper weapons. Short Range mechs could also suddenly really build up some firepower and sustain it long enough to be a threat.

[Cybermech]

why phantom heat?
or ghost heat?

its a staking penalty, if it was so bad there would be no personal need to relabel it.
I voted first choice for first 3, second on the last.
I always thought hardpoint restrictions was the best way to go.
But you can see why not and that they want you to have some more customization options.
Problem there was no penalties for boating and it had to be implemented.

So what happens to mechs with more then 1 ballistic slot like the DDC.
Wouldn't be able to fit ac20 or guass in it.
There might be a lot more change then proposed to gameplay.

[Cybermech]

Captain Midnight, on 17 August 2013 - 06:25 PM, said:

what if we added scaling heat penalties, so say the first shot at 0-25% heat is pinpoint, but convergance becomes a function of heat. For example at 75% heat your weapons would converge 150% slower, aka your four PPCs would cross wildly in flight to the target and you'd probably only hit with 1 or 2, and it would be extremely lucky for those 1-2 to hit the same component?

Cone fire and heat scale causing cone fire is a major problem.
Very easily manipulated and gives skilled players a massive advantage.
It is a fix but really its a filler in the fps world.
Pinpoint is an issue but this change was for multiple weapons on all fronts.
PPC's still run too cold and puts other weapons out of sync.
Whole dps of mainly bigger weapons needs to be dropped down.
There is plenty of DPS in 12v12's

[aniviron]

While I don't like ghost heat, your topic and poll seems to assume that the only way to balance the game is either ghost heat or hardpoints; I would disagree that this is true. Hardpoints seem like a really appealing option when compared to ghost heat, but that doesn't mean much; a punch in the face is better than getting thrown down a flight of stairs, but it doesn't mean either option is great.

On the plus side, now that you have a good false dichotomy in place, you can point at this poll and say "see, people want hardpoint limitations."