427 replies to this topic

[Vodrin Thales]

RandomLurker, on 10 October 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

Well it's basically required for medium mechs. A Trebuchet is as tall as a malfing Victor for holy sakes.

Balancing assaults and heavies will require more, either convergence or major heat system re-works. Once that's done though, sizing them down slightly will help normalize mechs with hitbox problems like the Awesome and Orion. I'm not suggesting a very large change either, but a slight one will help spread damage out at long range which is a good thing.

I think if anything most assaults should be larger. The Awesome's size is fine, it just needs larger side torsos and smaller side torsos. And it needs to side torsos to fully hide the CT when turned sideways. Mediums should be much smaller and lights slightly smaller for the most part (although the spider is fine).

[Charons Little Helper]

Vodrin Thales, on 10 October 2013 - 01:13 PM, said:

I think if anything most assaults should be larger. The Awesome's size is fine, it just needs larger side torsos and smaller side torsos. And it needs to side torsos to fully hide the CT when turned sideways. Mediums should be much smaller and lights slightly smaller for the most part (although the spider is fine).

From a balance perspective I kind of agree with you.

From a physics perspective - you're entirely off. If an atlas and a commando were both proportionally the same build (I think it's safe to say that the atlas is beefier.) then it should be a bit less than 1.59x as tall. It's a cubed ratio thing. (1.59 height x 1.59 width x 1.59 depth = 4.02ish)

An Atlas should be almost exactly 1.26x as tall as a hunchback, and a hunchback 1.26x as tall as a commando. Again, this is assuming equal proportions, and in general the bigger mechs are beefier. Therefore, if anything they shouldn't be as tall as going by pure cubed ratio would say.

[Vodrin Thales]

Charons Little Helper, on 10 October 2013 - 01:47 PM, said:

From a balance perspective I kind of agree with you.

From a physics perspective - you're entirely off. If an atlas and a commando were both proportionally the same build (I think it's safe to say that the atlas is beefier.) then it should be a bit less than 1.59x as tall. It's a cubed ratio thing. (1.59 height x 1.59 width x 1.59 depth = 4.02ish)

An Atlas should be almost exactly 1.26x as tall as a hunchback, and a hunchback 1.26x as tall as a commando. Again, this is assuming equal proportions, and in general the bigger mechs are beefier. Therefore, if anything they shouldn't be as tall as going by pure cubed ratio would say.

I could care less about physics. This whole game is fantasy so competitive balance is all that really matters. We can also just assume that heavier mechs have more hollow spaces and therefore are larger if it makes balance better.

[RandomLurker]

Vodrin Thales, on 10 October 2013 - 02:05 PM, said:

I could care less about physics. This whole game is fantasy so competitive balance is all that really matters. We can also just assume that heavier mechs have more hollow spaces and therefore are larger if it makes balance better.

The size an Atlas is now, it has so much hollow space that it would float in water. Actually, it's a wonder it doesn't fly off in a stiff breeze.

Even canon mech scales were WAAAAAAY off on their size/weight ratios. Some CBT people did displacement tests on the miniatures a while back to get their volume, scaled em up and calculated by tonnage, and determined that pretty much every mech ever would float in water with the density they had. It's pretty unsettling how far off they are. Given any form of realism, mechs should be half their canon size. Or less. And MWO mechs are almost 50% bigger then canon.

All I really want is for mechs to be consistently sized in relation to each other, with a nod towards gameplay. bigger lights improves hitreg issues, and smaller assaults improves pinpoint alpha issues. Making assaults even bigger is madness. It's already trivial to continually drill an Atlas in the CT. Making it a bigger target would only make it even weaker.

Edited by RandomLurker, 10 October 2013 - 03:45 PM.

[aniviron]

sokitumi, on 10 October 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

The role of the hunchback is be by the assaults and cover/support. Basically... it's designed to be a turret, and imo one of the more distinctive rides, where the other med chasis don't feel as unique. If you're trying to frontline in a hunchy that goes under 80.. you're doing it wrong. Not to say that the SP for ex. can't mosh just as good as anything it's class, it can.

There's actually nothing wrong with the 64kph HBK, and indeed, I just attach my 4H to a lance of assaults and think heavy thoughts, and remember not to go in first. The loadout I run (ac20, 5mlas, 71kph) is almost identical to a fairly popular cataphract build, even in speed- the only difference is the amount of armor.

That said, I'm not sure it's fair to pidgeonhole the HBK into a close support role. The 4P and 4SP are (or were, until ghost heat and the SRM nerf respectively) two of the best skirmishers in the game- they could both keep their stock weapon loadouts and bump the engine up to a 250, and that's a lot of firepower to be throwing around at 89kph. Even the 4G can pull off the Wang's trick of fast AC20s now. That said, while I agree that the HBK has the most defined role of all the mediums (and besides maybe the CDA is also the one that does it the best) in canon, the Cent is supposed to be the one doing this job.

Mcchuggernaut, on 10 October 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

That is a very good point you make there. I always wondered why medium mechs looked so big, when a lot of them should only be slightly bigger than a Jenner, if we are going on pure weight=size. I'm not sure what the official lore says about mech sizes, but they always seemed a bit off to me.

PGI has stated in response to questions of "Why are the mech sizes so ****** up" that the reason is that they go based on canon sizes, more or less. I know people are saying that there is too much size disparity right now, but for balance reasons, I'd argue the exact opposite. The Spider and Commando feel just about right, most mediums need to be a bit smaller, heavies are ok, and most assaults feel okay (not you, Stalker).

The problem is that the sizes in canon are insane; and they don't translate well to a realtime game where size affects how easy/hard it is to hit someone. Just for reference, the lightest clan mech we will probably see, the Firemoth, weighs in at 20 tons and is about 11.5m tall in canon. The heaviest is the Dire Wolf, which weighs in at 100 tons and measures about 12.5m tall. Anyone else seeing problems with that? I mean, even just from a game balance perspective, logic be damned?

[Captain Stiffy]

Credit to "Adrios"


Credit to "Minsc"

[Waldex]

Spiff, on 09 October 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

IMO one of the biggest drawbacks of the game is that fact that everyone tends to run really large or really small mechs. The lack of any meaningful role warfare means that there is really no incentive for players to run medium mechs.

Instead you end up with players picking their mech based on play style. Those who prefer firepower and armor pick a larger mech while those that prefer to use speed as armor pick a smaller one. Medium mechs tend to be targets for both.

Meanwhile, we have the ongoing complaints about the c-bill nerf and the lack of meaningful rewards for matches.

One quick fix to both problems would be to scale rewards based on the type of mech you pick. If you want to encourage folks to run more mediums, then buff the c-bill and experience reward for mediums by 50%.

This gives players a good way to make c-bills quickly, encourages them to pilot something other than victors and spiders, and doesn't require all the complex changes that role warfare would involve.

You could even tie the reward to the frequency with which the mech is used. So if commandos aren't used all that much, they get an automatic buff to rewards. If their usage increases, the buff decreases and shifts to some other chassis that isn't used all that often.

I love this idea however, I think 50% is way too high, it would throw the economy out of alignment. Maybe a sliding scale that maxed out around 25% for less use chassis/variants, with a 10% buff for the more commonly used, uncommon mechs.

Lefty Lucy, on 09 October 2013 - 10:19 AM, said:

You can balance the game based on rewards, especially if you still get a much larger reward for winning the match, getting more kills/assists, etc. +50% of 0 is still 0.

Because of the way TT hit modifiers don't translate into a real-time game with precision aiming, and because of the legacy construction system from Battletech, mediums will never be able to compete with other mech classes that are heavier or lighter in straight fighting or scouting capability.

They had an opportunity to use the pilot lab to differentiate mech classes, but have dropped that ball like it's made out of teflon-coated lead.

I guess the natural question that arises is: why is it important to the game that more players play medium mechs?

Because weight balancing is coming, soon. If people do not start downsizing their builds now, they will be at the mercy of those who started sooner. I know at DWAR we have been working on and talking about this for the last six weeks or so...

[sokitumi]

aniviron, on 10 October 2013 - 04:12 PM, said:

There's actually nothing wrong with the 64kph HBK, and indeed, I just attach my 4H to a lance of assaults and think heavy thoughts, and remember not to go in first. The loadout I run (ac20, 5mlas, 71kph) is almost identical to a fairly popular cataphract build, even in speed- the only difference is the amount of armor.

That said, I'm not sure it's fair to pidgeonhole the HBK into a close support role. The 4P and 4SP are (or were, until ghost heat and the SRM nerf respectively) two of the best skirmishers in the game- they could both keep their stock weapon loadouts and bump the engine up to a 250, and that's a lot of firepower to be throwing around at 89kph. Even the 4G can pull off the Wang's trick of fast AC20s now. That said, while I agree that the HBK has the most defined role of all the mediums (and besides maybe the CDA is also the one that does it the best) in canon, the Cent is supposed to be the one doing this job.

True. But the hunch RT vulnerability + that little gas tank rear torso over the left shoulder makes them too risky to rly run XL. Risky without XL too bc thats where all the guns are.Thus a lot of their potential tonnage gets eaten away, and they're not-hard-to-neuter. Making them less appealing frontliners than other med chasis. Of course you can still rampage in open games with a big gun hunch barreling over hills.

Edited by sokitumi, 10 October 2013 - 05:40 PM.

[aniviron]

sokitumi, on 10 October 2013 - 05:39 PM, said:

True. But the hunch RT vulnerability + that little gas tank rear torso over the left shoulder makes them too risky to rly run XL. Risky without XL too bc thats where all the guns are.Thus a lot of their potential tonnage gets eaten away, and they're not-hard-to-neuter. Making them less appealing frontliners than other med chasis. Of course you can still rampage in open games with a big gun hunch barreling over hills.

Yeah, but none of my builds run XLs. A 250 standard lets you run pretty much all the firepower you want, and a 275 requires only modest cuts. A 200 lets you hit well above your weight class, and 71kph is not too terrible.

The hunch vulnerability is pretty obnoxious, but honestly ever since I switched the armor loadout to 45 front 3 back, it's been a lot less of a big deal. Unless I'm forced into trying to take on an assault alone, I can almost always cripple my opponent before he cripples me; it does demand a lot of pilot skill to keep the hunch alive, but the effort is rewarded with good firepower and overall good hitboxes.

[Cragger]

aniviron, on 10 October 2013 - 04:12 PM, said:

PGI has stated in response to questions of "Why are the mech sizes so ****** up" that the reason is that they go based on canon sizes, more or less. I know people are saying that there is too much size disparity right now, but for balance reasons, I'd argue the exact opposite. The Spider and Commando feel just about right, most mediums need to be a bit smaller, heavies are ok, and most assaults feel okay (not you, Stalker).

The problem is that the sizes in canon are insane; and they don't translate well to a realtime game where size affects how easy/hard it is to hit someone. Just for reference, the lightest clan mech we will probably see, the Firemoth, weighs in at 20 tons and is about 11.5m tall in canon. The heaviest is the Dire Wolf, which weighs in at 100 tons and measures about 12.5m tall. Anyone else seeing problems with that? I mean, even just from a game balance perspective, logic be damned?

And it is the same mistake that has been happening since the first Mechwarrior. Size in cannon actually didn't mean anything. Didn't matter if a medium was 50m tall moving 60kph or 150m tall moving 60kph because the dice roll to hit each section with a particular weapon at a particular distance was always the same.

This is what happens when you take things. Hit locations, armor systems, critical slots that are all based around a turn based dice roll core system and try to beat them around a real time, precise aim no dice roll system.

It would have annoyed a lot of grognards but PGI would have ended up with a far better game if they had simply designed their own system from the ground up that fit precise aiming real time and just utilized the Battletech universe. Mechwarrior Tactics is a blast because it doesn't try to mangle one system to fit another.

[Charons Little Helper]

Of note (showing how crazily huge all the mechs are) - an Abrams tank is 3.66 meters wide x 2.44 meters tall x 7.93 meters long and weighs in at 67.6 tons. (60.4 metric tons)

I actually didn't know how big they were. I guess that mechs (going purely by tonnage - not size) aren't too big to be militarily effective. Just way too big for their weight.

I think in the end the key is just to make mediums required by tonnage limits.

After all - in the battletech universe, all other things being equal most commanders would no doubt love to fill their lances with assault mechs. But they can't due to cost / efficiency issues. Two hunchbacks would, in most circumstances, would be superior to a single atlas.

Once tonnage limits are in place I won't mind being in a somewhat inferior mech if it means that I'm using less of my team's resources. (plus if I still place top I'll be able to get an even bigger head than I have)

[Gaan Cathal]

Charons Little Helper, on 10 October 2013 - 07:53 PM, said:

Of note (showing how crazily huge all the mechs are) - an Abrams tank is 3.66 meters wide x 2.44 meters tall x 7.93 meters long and weighs in at 67.6 tons. (60.4 metric tons)

I actually didn't know how big they were. I guess that mechs (going purely by tonnage - not size) aren't too big to be militarily effective. Just way too big for their weight.

I think in the end the key is just to make mediums required by tonnage limits.

After all - in the battletech universe, all other things being equal most commanders would no doubt love to fill their lances with assault mechs. But they can't due to cost / efficiency issues. Two hunchbacks would, in most circumstances, would be superior to a single atlas.

Once tonnage limits are in place I won't mind being in a somewhat inferior mech if it means that I'm using less of my team's resources. (plus if I still place top I'll be able to get an even bigger head than I have)

Lights are as good/better and less tonnage, though.

[Kahoumono]

What about decreased engine output as a penalty for high heat output? This was part of TT and could be interpreted to fit into this game. If mechs slowed down when they ran too hot and mediums suffered less than other classes then there'd be an advantage to use mediums. The added mobility in a brawl could give them the edge. This could even be tuned so the penalty differed across mechs.

The penalty could also alleviate the hit registrations with the lights who can slalom entire teams because they are too fast to hit (too fast for hit registration to work properly anyways). If lights were hit with a 15-20% speed reduction lights would have to revert back to the hit and run/scouting role that they should play and not the brawlers from hell which they are currently. If you think spiders are hard to hit now wait for the flea and the locust.

[Johnny Reb]

King Picollo, on 10 October 2013 - 02:24 AM, said:

Make them faster by default.

My Hunchback runs at the same speed as my Cataphract out of the box, where as lights run are much quicker and Assualts much slower.

Give them an extra 10mph, then they'll be a better speed distribution between mechs.

You can't make them faster by default! Other than letting them equip a bigger engine.

[Johnny Reb]

Shadey99, on 10 October 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

Doing this off the top of my head, but the math goes engine rating dived by tonnage of mech times 16.2 equals max kph. So 360/45 * 16.2 = 129.6 kph... Not including speed tweak.

Thats pretty fast! With tweek and pure 10% increase is 143 or around?

[Johnny Reb]

Charons Little Helper, on 10 October 2013 - 01:47 PM, said:

From a balance perspective I kind of agree with you.

From a physics perspective - you're entirely off. If an atlas and a commando were both proportionally the same build (I think it's safe to say that the atlas is beefier.) then it should be a bit less than 1.59x as tall. It's a cubed ratio thing. (1.59 height x 1.59 width x 1.59 depth = 4.02ish)

An Atlas should be almost exactly 1.26x as tall as a hunchback, and a hunchback 1.26x as tall as a commando. Again, this is assuming equal proportions, and in general the bigger mechs are beefier. Therefore, if anything they shouldn't be as tall as going by pure cubed ratio would say.

I really only care about the game play perspective! Which is off for most mediums.

[Barantor]

More rewards.

People like shiny things, give mediums more xp/cbills for assists and component destruction.

Easier to alter that than redoing large quantities of game material like some are suggesting.

[Johnny Reb]

Barantor, on 10 October 2013 - 09:12 PM, said:

More rewards.

People like shiny things, give mediums more xp/cbills for assists and component destruction.

Easier to alter that than redoing large quantities of game material like some are suggesting.

That only works for a little bit, mediums need to be useful in top play also not just pugs, to get things!

[Hythos]

Mass and density are not proportional. An engine will occupy roughly the same volume, therefor densities will vary. Volume by tonnage isn't relative.

I'd like to see HUGE maps where speed and role matters. IF maps were much larger than Alpine or Crimson Straight, Assaults won't be popular, Heavies would probably be the new maximum weight-class, and Mediums / Lights will be the common work-force. Assaults would still have a place in a Command Lance, or for garrison.

[Johnny Reb]

Hythos, on 10 October 2013 - 09:34 PM, said:

Mass and density are not proportional. An engine will occupy roughly the same volume, therefor densities will vary. Volume by tonnage isn't relative.

I'd like to see HUGE maps where speed and role matters. IF maps were much larger than Alpine or Crimson Straight, Assaults won't be popular, Heavies would probably be the new maximum weight-class, and Mediums / Lights will be the common work-force. Assaults would still have a place in a Command Lance, or for garrison.

Only certain mediums, i.e. the ones that can keep up, no reg hunchie, treb, bj or cent. However, faster ones, bj-1x, cent-d, treb-3c and kintaro would be great on such maps as light backups.

edit: also with the big maps as is, teams get spread apart, with a HUGE map would need even bigger drops.

Edited by Johnny Reb, 10 October 2013 - 09:41 PM.