21 replies to this topic

[Livewyr]

Just exploring the thought, so don't hang me.

Increasing all weapon cool downs by roughly 50%.

AC20: 4- 6 seconds
Gauss: 4 - 6 seconds
PPC: 4- 6 seconds
AC10 2.5 - 3.7 seconds
AC2 .5 - .75 second
(Lasers and missiles as well, I just don't have their CDs memorized)

etc..

The only weapons that really wouldn't be effected are MGs and Flamers..

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Logic?

Well, currently mechs die very quickly. In some cases, so fast they don't get the chance to turn around or take cover. (I thought of this during the one time I brought out my Ilya with 3xUAC5.. god that mech is Borked- flanked behind the enemy advance in River City.. most of them didn't get to turn around..)

Upping the armor just screws with the weapon values more, and currently Alpha strike is still supreme simply because of the frequency at which it can be done. (Longest Alpha cooldown is 4 seconds..)

I thought about doubling the CDs, but one has to find a balance between excessive DPS and straight boring game-play.

Thoughts?

[Training Instructor]

It's an interesting idea. I do agree that mechs are dying too fast, but I think it's more of a convergence and overly high heat capacity problem, rather than a cooldown problem.

[Livewyr]

Training Instructor, on 09 September 2013 - 06:56 AM, said:

It's an interesting idea. I do agree that mechs are dying too fast, but I think it's more of a convergence and overly high heat capacity problem, rather than a cooldown problem.

I agree that convergence is an evil.. but I think Convergence is the lesser of two evils. (Imagine a cone of fire, or slow convergence system as advocated by many, and trying to fight a small mech running around you...particularly a spider)

The spider has no problem hitting your large slow frame with all of his weapons..but you're lucky to hit the tiny little fast scrapmonger with more than 1 weapon, if you hit him at all. He's going to eat you for lunch.

As far as heat- I think this could be solved by adding gradient punishments for higher heat. (Slowdowns, maneuverability loss, RoF loss, internal damage, etc...making heat sinks much more necessary and having massive alpha heat-spikes be very bad for you.- this would also allow for the Heat scale to be removed in favor of perhaps a system where generating a lot of heat at once results in a slower dissipation.)

[Tezcatli]

I'd rather see them increase internal hit points and of course implement some kind convergence penalty.

[MustrumRidcully]

Well, my idea to deal with convergence and group fire and the resulting boating synergies would be to enforce all weapons to be chain-fired (with a delay that would be weapon-specific). But chain-firing 6 weapons within 4 seconds seems... impractical. So raising the cooldowns would probably be advisable. There wouldn't need to be a worry that people would find the extra delay " boring" - since they'd be busy firing each weapon individually over the extended time frame, they'd be likely more busy then they are now.

[mike29tw]

Lasers and missiles are already less desired weapon due to the fact that they spread their damage.

Laser and missile boats are already restricted by ghost heat. The main reasons of mechs dying too fast IMO are weapons that can do focused damage, ie Gauss, PPCs, and some of the AC family, so I'd say increase their CD instead of the CD of all weapons.

[Roadkill]

All this would do is reinforce the current "alpha strike" meta. Pop tarts and hill humpers would become even more powerful, because doing all of your damage to a single location would become even more important than it already is.

It's tempting to believe that slowing weapon recharge would give brawlers more time to close, but what it really means is that that first shot that the sniper lands is an even bigger advantage.

[Zyllos]

Livewyr, on 09 September 2013 - 07:04 AM, said:

I agree that convergence is an evil.. but I think Convergence is the lesser of two evils. (Imagine a cone of fire, or slow convergence system as advocated by many, and trying to fight a small mech running around you...particularly a spider)

The spider has no problem hitting your large slow frame with all of his weapons..but you're lucky to hit the tiny little fast scrapmonger with more than 1 weapon, if you hit him at all. He's going to eat you for lunch.

You have a problem with your assumption.

The Spider might land more hits, but those hits will be spread out across several locations and does less DPS.

The larger mech would land less hits, while still being spread out, but the DPS is much higher.

The way I view it, the Spider would have to fight a target for long time to take it out unless they get a lucky critical hit on weapons, ammo, or land a couple of head shots.

The larger mech would only need a few solid hits to maim the Spider. I view that as balanced.

[CPT Orangetayo]

I'd like to see everything but armor remain as is. If armor were buffed and had more distinct benefits/weaknesses, it could add longevity and more variety.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Small, Medium Lasers could remain the same. Pulse speed up a bit. Missiles remain the same.

[Lostdragon]

I would like to see them put out a test server build where all weapon damage is cut in half. I would rather fire more often and do less damage per shot than fire less often and do more damage per shot. This sort of change would reward more consistent aim without making the most powerful weapons fire so slow that they are boring.

Ammo would of course need an increase if you decrease weapon damage.

[Sable Dove]

I think the very first thing we need is doubling of internal structure values, because otherwise, there's no incentive to strip some armour, because you have to lose a large amount of armour to make room, and Internal structure isn't robust enough to handle any sort of fire currently.

It's part of the reason that stock mechs are garbage, since they're all low on armour, and if you don't have maxed armour, you're going to die very quickly.

I don't think increasing the cooldown times is going to help too much with the larger problem. Yes, it will slow down kills, but it won't change that large alphas are the most powerful builds. Convergence isn't really the problem either (it's better than a random system, at least); the problem there is that players are able to fire their weapons all at once and hit a single location. Cut heat capacity down significantly (20 or so), and suddenly players can't have 45-damage alphas at 600m without causing significant damage to themselves from overheating. Then it's simply a matter of adjusting the dissipation rates to a more reasonable level.

[RatBast]

Currently, at least in my experience, matches generally last between 10 and 15 minutes. This allows for a few nice scraps, with several mechs, within an inexcessive time period. Do you guys REALLY want your matches to last twice as long as they do currently? Not to mention the added frustration of blasting away at an enemy mech with much less effect.

[Lostdragon]

RatBast, on 09 September 2013 - 12:45 PM, said:

Currently, at least in my experience, matches generally last between 10 and 15 minutes. This allows for a few nice scraps, with several mechs, within an inexcessive time period. Do you guys REALLY want your matches to last twice as long as they do currently? Not to mention the added frustration of blasting away at an enemy mech with much less effect.

My average match time in mechs I started since 12v12 is about 7 minutes.

[Angel of Annihilation]

There are alot of ways you can address this without slowing the game play down. You could increase armor or increase the number of hitboxes. You could increase internal HPs as well.

However I would get behind the longer cooldowns IF they would get off this god forsaken heat scales that make so many weapons worthless. I get so darn tired over Overheating on mechs that should be impossible to overheat.

[Trynn]

While I like the idea , you also would then have to address MG's and flamers (maybe not flamers much)

MG's have recived several buffs (unneeded imo) and hitting other weapons would further push the up the chain in weapon effectiveness, especially in the hads of lights.

[Vermana]

OP, it's not the cooldowns OR the armor. Those are not why Mechs are dying too fast.

The reason mechs are dying too fast is because so many weapons deal all their damage to one area.

Proposed solution - Spread some of the PPC damage to AoE instead of all of it in one area, add CoF to ACs, ESPECIALLY UAC5. Gauss is fine since it has the charge time now.

[Stoney74]

Introduce a lot of weapon inprecision due to movement, and this game changes immensely. If I'm standing still, point of aim = point of impact. If I'm moving slowly, some imprecision is introduced. If I'm moving at full throttle, so much imprecision is introduced that I can't reliably hit anything beyond 100 meters, or something to that effect.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Stoney74, on 09 September 2013 - 03:59 PM, said:

Introduce a lot of weapon inprecision due to movement, and this game changes immensely. If I'm standing still, point of aim = point of impact. If I'm moving slowly, some imprecision is introduced. If I'm moving at full throttle, so much imprecision is introduced that I can't reliably hit anything beyond 100 meters, or something to that effect.

Never happen due to the mass QQing from the elite who insist they can never miss, if they can put there cursor over a specific pixel that is where it hits.

[Stoney74]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 10 September 2013 - 02:31 AM, said:

Never happen due to the mass QQing from the elite who insist they can never miss, if they can put there cursor over a specific pixel that is where it hits.

If you're sitting still, and not traversing your torso, I have no problem with point of aim = point of impact. But if you're moving and/or traversing, institute some deviation in point of impact. There should be some luck involved in that type of high-risk shooting unless you're up close and personal.