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PGI has resorted to introducing new mechanics, like firing delays and ghost heat, and insane HPS to try and balance these aspects, only accomplishing nerfing a particular thing at a time and generating a new “uber” in the process, which ends up with a lot of items just left on the junk pile instead of giving incentives for going for a “balanced build”.
Currently, MWO mechs function more like omni-mechs, with the ability to fit way beyond what the original balancing concepts of BattleTech and MW computer games. Heatsinks remain badly broken, as well as the whole heat system, allowing for builds that can fire indefinitely without ever overheating. A variety of mechs are being fitted with weapon systems they never would have been able to before, a good example is the Dual AC20 Catapult, whereas the 2 ballistic spots originally were machine guns.
It still boils down to these two items that have been brought up for a long time now. Heat and the fitting mechanics.
Heat:
Currently, heatsinks add heat levels to a mech, as well as heat dissipation speed. This encouraged use of lower heat-high damage builds. Dual to quad AC5 and UAC5 builds that deliver pinpoint damage at range with almost no heat now rule. In the past, it was the 4-6 PPC Stalker, or the 6 LL Stalker, jump sniping PPC/Gauss Highlanders, the list goes on. But the real issue here has always been HPS – how much damage can you put out for as long as possible. Instead, heat should be handled as follows:
-Each Mech has a base heat amount, unique for the most part, with bigger mechs having better heat than lighter ones.
-Engines are not only rated by speed but also by heat level, larger engines having better heat than smaller ones. This would be an interesting mechanic, do you go for a larger engine for more speed and heat, but less firepower, or a smaller engine to save weight and add firepower, but with less heat?
-Heat sinks do not add more heat level to the mech, they merely increase the heat dissipation rate, so the more heatsinks you have, the faster the heat dissipates. DHS at that point can actually be "double" single heat sinks, and there would actually be a reason at times to use single heat sinks.
High heat alphas would have been reduced to 1 possible with an immediate shutdown, and possibly internal heat damage, with the above mechanic. Also, it would allow for a more balanced heat rating for weapons, instead of AC5/UAC5 doing 1 heat every 1.5 secs vs ERPPCs doing 15 heat every 4 seconds. Ballistics would still have lower heat, but the ability to fire multiple ballistics at one time continuously could also be curtailed.
Heat handled per the above would also reduce the use of alphas to a "last resort" type of maneuver, since doing more than 1, or possible 2, alphas would shut down almost any mech. Now it would be an issue of how to deliver damage over time instead of all at once, making the games longer with more variety of tactics.
Weapon Hardpoints:
Until the introduction of omni-tech to the IS, there were the stock models only. Modifications cost dearly, and also could be the source for significant issues in running a mech. That’s fine for tabletop, but in a computer game, you want people to have some ability to customize their ride. But the current mechanics make all mechs basically omni-mechs. So long as there are open criticals in that location and you have the tonnage, you can fit any of that type of weapon in that location, up to the quantity limit.
Instead,hardpoints should not open to all the crits in that location. Besides the number of weapons of that type, there also needs to be a limit as to the number of crits that can be used for those weapon types. All of the crit slots in that location would no longer be able to fit that weapon type.
So, having 3 energy on a right torso might mean there were only 6 energy crits there. You could fit 3 large lasers, 2 PPCs but not 3 PPCs, or a PPC/LL/ML. Same for ballistics and missiles, 2 ballistics in an arm, but only 5 ballistic slots, so you could fir 2 AC2, an AC2 and an AC5, but not 2 AC5s. Similar to the way it was in MW4.
These 2 mechanics combined would remove a lot of the boating issues, and actually force balanced builds. It would also make each mech more unique, giving more variety for lance compositions and not just seeing the same handful of mechs all the time, boating whatever the FOTM is. Chasis with heavy energy build would have higher base heat, so mech like the Awesome would actualy be able to do what it was designed for, be a PPC platform, Mechs with heavy ballistic builds might have lower heat, but more crit space for ballistic weapons.
It would make each mech more unique, as well as more balanced in relation to each other. And also would help eliminate the ridiculous balancing by nerfing or adding unnecessary mechanics..
Edited by Lupus Aurelius, 22 September 2013 - 05:35 AM.
