427 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

I see with skill trees pgi should be able to modify mediums to be more effective, it seams like that is very good and easy way to fix mediums.

Exactly. Having unique skill trees would fix mediums almost overnight. Because youd no longer have assaults that can turn on a dime or heavies that go 90kph. And almost all of the flaws with mediums can be addressed by giving them unique skills in their skill tree (and by taking skills like anchor turn and speed tweak away from assaults and heavies).

Edited by Khobai, 11 November 2013 - 02:14 PM.

[Wolfways]

Mister Blastman, on 11 November 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

I guess you aren't a stud then.

In the arcades... you made do with whatever you were dealt.

Fine by me

But it's not a case of making do. The different classes are different playstyles. At least when i'm playing an assault, heavy, and even (maybe) a medium i feel like i'm playing BT. In a light i may aswell be playing Hawken....except MWO has easier targets
Although i do have my RVN-3L...

Give me a chicken-walker medium and i'll probably play it though. Imo mediums are as fast as mechs should be.

[Diego Angelus]

Wolfways, on 11 November 2013 - 02:33 PM, said:

Fine by me

But it's not a case of making do. The different classes are different playstyles. At least when i'm playing an assault, heavy, and even (maybe) a medium i feel like i'm playing BT. In a light i may aswell be playing Hawken....except MWO has easier targets
Although i do have my RVN-3L...

Give me a chicken-walker medium and i'll probably play it though. Imo mediums are as fast as mechs should be.

So BJ with standard engine goes 64kph if you put bigger engine then you can't hit hard enough so you are forced to use XL. to get same speed victor does with XL engine. Maybe mediums move fast enough be then other classes are in question.

[Asbjorn Ironside]

Khobai, on 11 November 2013 - 12:16 PM, said:

Because they are. The problem is raising the max engine cap doesnt help mediums much because they still have to free up the tonnage for larger engines.

Thats why the first major step for fixing medium mechs has to come primarily from the mech skill tree. All weight classes should have unique skill trees. That should be the first major step towards implementing role warfare. It makes no sense that an assault mech has anchor turn or speed tweak for example, that's just laziness on PGI's behalf.

The second major step should be implementing specialized roles, each with their own skill trees, like recon/strike/command/assault/support, etc... which directly influence what active/passive abilities you have and what modules you can use. Before you play each game you should have to choose a role and then choose a mech and you should be able switch roles in between games as easily as you can switch mechs. Mediums should also get the most module slots and they should be allowed to mix and match abilties/modules from different roles to a certain degree. This would give them a lot of versatility which is how its supposed to be.

This is a really good idea. has anything like the specialized role trees been suggested to PGi in the forums yet? Mediums do need some tweaking. I love mediums and pilot them very often, but saying that, I do have heavys that are just as fast as my hunchback (even when I have the biggest engine I can put in my HBk while still staying offensive-capable) and my assault BLR is faster than my heavy TDR which is BS tbh.

I think unique skill trees/specialized role pilot tress is something they should have anyway, regardless of your opinion on whether mediums needs balancing or not. The same trees for all mechs is just stupid and doesnt make sense.

Edited by Marcus VII, 11 November 2013 - 04:20 PM.

[Navy Sixes]

Marcus VII, on 11 November 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

has anything like the specialized role trees been suggested to PGi in the forums yet?

I think there was an ATD where it was brought up and they said the current skill tree would evolve or something (no set ideas, no set dates, so with all due respect to PGI don't hold your breath) It would be great though, wouldn't it? In addition to breathing life into the medium weight class, it would really be a great way to specialize your pilot and breath life back into "role warfare" in general.

Since Phoenix I've been really loving my Shadowhawk. I can't wait to get a hold of the Wolverine and the Griffin next month. I haven't played a big mech in so long, I'm almost tempted to buy one just to remind myself why I gave 'em up. I'll be playing mediums for the long-term future, whether or not they get a rework. There's so much more personal accomplishment in dropping two Atlases in a match when you know that between them they outweigh you almost 4:1.

[Khobai]

Quote

This is a really good idea. has anything like the specialized role trees been suggested to PGi in the forums yet?

Yes. I actually got the idea from PGI. At one time they had some really great design ideas for the game. I dont know what's happened since then.

http://mwomercs.com/...-3-role-warfare

[YueFei]

Murzao, on 11 November 2013 - 01:27 PM, said:

@Mallan Honestly I rage more at the sh!tty assault/heavy pilots that go facetank and die in 3 seconds than some phantom 1/20 weight mismatch game. People who think they need to be in an assault/heavy just to be 'competitive' are very very bad players. I can handle going 1v1 vs anyone in my mediums. I can even handle most 1v2s vs 2 Jenners or 2 assaults as long as I can pillar hump something. It only starts getting hard at 1v3, some would say that is working as intended....and it is.

@Khobai, Medium mechs are already superior in 1v1 brawls. They don't really need extra perks. Their falloff is due to a poor 'force multiplier' effect because they have a spread of different weapon systems (or their boats are all short range)

What really ****** me off is that basecap rate supernerf so now I need 3 people with me to drop the speed anytime fast, before I could win the game singlehandedly even if 2 silly Jenners came back for an attempted base defense. Biggest medium nerf ever.

Medium mechs are fine. It's the game modes and maps that suck.

If you changed the American football field to 30 feet wide, you'd have nothing but 350+ pound guys on both sides of the ball.

But, it's 160 feet wide, so you see all different sizes of athletes. You've got the massive linemen to hold the center, you've got shorter and more agile running backs, you've got tight ends and line backers that are faster than linemen but still stronger than the running backs and wide receivers, and you've got the fastest players on the edges of the formation.

And no, nerfing the agility of Heavies and Assaults isn't the answer. This game is not about 1v1's. It avails you naught to outmaneuver and get behind 1 opponent, if his buddy 150 meters away can still core you out, so he doesn't even bother having to try to turn with you. Rogues in World of Warcraft can beat Warriors in 1v1 duels, but make it 5 Rogues vs 5 Warriors, and the Warriors win every single time. It's that "force multiplier" effect.

Make the maps bigger and spread objectives around, with each objective having strategic or tactical implications on the match itself, and the problem takes care of itself.

[Diego Angelus]

YueFei, on 11 November 2013 - 10:13 PM, said:

Medium mechs are fine. It's the game modes and maps that suck.

If you changed the American football field to 30 feet wide, you'd have nothing but 350+ pound guys on both sides of the ball.

But, it's 160 feet wide, so you see all different sizes of athletes. You've got the massive linemen to hold the center, you've got shorter and more agile running backs, you've got tight ends and line backers that are faster than linemen but still stronger than the running backs and wide receivers, and you've got the fastest players on the edges of the formation.

And no, nerfing the agility of Heavies and Assaults isn't the answer. This game is not about 1v1's. It avails you naught to outmaneuver and get behind 1 opponent, if his buddy 150 meters away can still core you out, so he doesn't even bother having to try to turn with you. Rogues in World of Warcraft can beat Warriors in 1v1 duels, but make it 5 Rogues vs 5 Warriors, and the Warriors win every single time. It's that "force multiplier" effect.

Make the maps bigger and spread objectives around, with each objective having strategic or tactical implications on the match itself, and the problem takes care of itself.

I agree on map part and football analogy, but I disagree when it comes to medium mechs because they don't have anything going for them. As things are now there is not a single reason to take medium unless you have tonnage limitation. Why take hunch with big week point over Victor that hits harder has same speed better armor and on top of that can use JJs hell they are even same height. There are some serious issues with mediums. Even if you put them on bigger maps there is still no reason to use them over other classes

[El Bandito]

Mediums are oversized.

[MustrumRidcully]

Artgathan, on 11 November 2013 - 09:02 AM, said:

If I remember correctly, Elo is determined by weight class - so that you really have 4 Elo scores (light, medium, heavy, assault), so this approach would not actually keep you from being stuck with the "meta-tards".

It's true that your own Elo score is determined by weight class, but team matchups are done by the Elo of the entire team.
So, if mediums are generally worse and drag a team down, it's more likely to lose. If you are more likely to lose with a medium in the team, then medium Elos would generally be worse than those of lights, heavies or assaults.

But I am not sure how much it would help, since the game also tries to match weight classes, so the enemy team might simply also get a medium with your Elo, and still get you a high Elo team member in an assault that needs to match with a high Elo enemy in an assault on the other side.

Oh, whatever. It's all wild speculation. If such trends exist, we'd only find them in server statistics we're not privy to.

[Zyllos]

Terror Teddy, on 11 November 2013 - 09:34 AM, said:

Simple.

1: Stop having engine rating affects a mechs turn and twist ratio.

Let those values be fixed as those values are an inherent limit to each chassi.
This would mean that a medium mech would always be faster on the turn and twist while the assaults and heavies would be harder to use in close combat.

Assault Mechs are designed to be the heavily armed fortress with a shitload of guns and take damage - It does not mean it's a "tank" and should be a brawler - that's for faster heavies but more importantly Mediums.

The rank and file of mechs are lights and mediums simply due to the COST of maintaining them in the field.

2. Drop weight limit. (Explains itself)

3. Class limit -Give actual options to edit what kind of fights one wants.
Only assaults, sure
Only Mediums, sure
Only lights versus mediums, sure
Assaults vs only lights, sure

GIVE.US.OPTIONS.

Your first option would go a long ways. The chassis should be the torso twist speed, angle, and overall turning speed. Engine rating should only effect acceleration and top speed. If players want to drop engine rating for weight savings so they become turrets (because your torso twist speed/angle is not effected by engine rating), then let them. Once you get behind turrets, they will become easy prey due to their slow acceleration, which is effected by engine rating.

Drop limits will help mediums some by making the field not just completely full of assaults/heavies, thus helping their survivability.

Class limits also will make diversity interesting. If a certain mission type is suppose to represent a "lightning speed strike", then Assaults would most likely be out of the question and only a limited amount of Heavies should exist. Then, with tonnage limits, it would make actually taking a slow Heavy would be a death sentence for the mission due to either having to keep your back to protect it, allowing the smaller, faster mechs to take out the objectives, or leaving the slow mech defenseless against a swarm.

It also adds diverse gameplay, which helps keep the game fresh with every time you drop. One moment, you might be in this grand assault battle, slugging it out with large mechs then the next moment, your behind enemy lines with Light and Medium mechs going up against Heavies protecting a target.

[Voivode]

Keep track of what most people are running in current matches and offer bonuses for dropping in whatever weights/weight classes are underrepresented. Keep track of it in a long term way and start to offer preemptive bonuses that maintain balance in weight distribution rather than just respond to an imbalance after it happens.

[Wonderdog]

Can't say I've ever had issues in my AC20 + 2ML + STD250/260 HBK-4G. Rattling around at 90kph, pinpointing damaged locations on enemy mechs, and running away when necessary is great fun. The agility increases on mediums helped a lot (for me).

Still - I'd like to see some proper (by which I mean - sensible rather than canon) mech model re-scaling implemented.

That and some less melty energy weapon options - mediums suffer from lack a lack of tonnage (or bundled engine capacity) for heatsinks to make them work, since the heat scale is the same on every mech, its a nightmare to balance the same weapon loadout from a restricted pool across multiple mech classes.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I don't need any incentive to run Mediums, the Hunchback and Shadowhawk are two of my favorite mechs in the game. I run Mediums at least 50% of the time (if not more).

[Murzao]

YueFei, on 11 November 2013 - 10:13 PM, said:

Medium mechs are fine. It's the game modes and maps that suck.

If you changed the American football field to 30 feet wide, you'd have nothing but 350+ pound guys on both sides of the ball.

But, it's 160 feet wide, so you see all different sizes of athletes. You've got the massive linemen to hold the center, you've got shorter and more agile running backs, you've got tight ends and line backers that are faster than linemen but still stronger than the running backs and wide receivers, and you've got the fastest players on the edges of the formation.

And no, nerfing the agility of Heavies and Assaults isn't the answer. This game is not about 1v1's. It avails you naught to outmaneuver and get behind 1 opponent, if his buddy 150 meters away can still core you out, so he doesn't even bother having to try to turn with you. Rogues in World of Warcraft can beat Warriors in 1v1 duels, but make it 5 Rogues vs 5 Warriors, and the Warriors win every single time. It's that "force multiplier" effect.

Make the maps bigger and spread objectives around, with each objective having strategic or tactical implications on the match itself, and the problem takes care of itself.

That's pretty much it, people are trying to be warriors with their rogues, failing hard and then complaining they suck. Bring back the old basecap speed and all is fixed. Right now there is no incentive to not be in 2 big colliding zergballs. To not be a warrior instead of the rogue. You see someone capping your base you are like 'well it's only 1 guy it'll take him 10 minutes, just ignore him'......to 'there's 5 guys on it we're gonna lose anyways yay'. When there's an actual reason to splitting off into groups of 1-2-3 is where mediums shine.

[Khobai]

Quote

That's pretty much it, people are trying to be warriors with their rogues

That not it at all. MWO does not have warrior and rogue classes. It has warrior and not-as-good warrior.

That's the whole reason why we need unique skill trees for each weight class and role warfare skill trees. Because it would allow medium mechs to do things that heavies cant already do better. It would bring parity to all four weight classes by making each of them crucial to winning.

Edited by Khobai, 12 November 2013 - 11:38 AM.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

What im getting are the best solutions are..


Reduce the size of the actual mechs (I.E. PGI actually going back and fixing something which for some reason they are hellbent on)

Improve their turn radius, pitch, torsotwist speed and acceleration even more. Improve max number of JJ's

Allow for most mediums to use multiple (2+) AMS on their mechs.

Edited by mwhighlander, 12 November 2013 - 11:39 AM.

[Skunk Wolf]

Re-Scale and bonus module slots seem to be the best ideas here.

Re-Scale means yelling at the art department, who are most expensive.

Bonus module slots most likely then.

[Phromethius]

mwhighlander, on 12 November 2013 - 11:39 AM, said:

What im getting are the best solutions are..


Reduce the size of the actual mechs (I.E. PGI actually going back and fixing something which for some reason they are hellbent on)

what I don't understand is that scaling 3D models is NOT hard to do. AND on top of that the surfaces are all UV mapping anyway which are directly related to the scale of the polygons on a flattened map.

Scale the mechs, export a new scaled UV map and just photoshop that bidness down to size. The textures will still translate very well. I work with 3D and got my eduction in that field and saying that it is difficult to do seems like BS to me.

Battlemasters and Atlases are the ONLY Heavy/Assaults mechs that my Hunchback seems scaled to correctly. And I am not even getting started on the Shadow Hawk. (Im not saying the Hunchback needs work, only what I feel from 1pv.) But Cent, Kint, Treb, Shadhawk etc. needs to be a lot smaller in profile and height.

[Jman5]

Min/Max weight caps and your problems go away over night. Once you have a finite amount of tonnage to work with on your 4-man team you start looking at ways to get the most out of your tonnage. That's where Lights, Mediums and Heavies are going to shine. So for a 720 max cap you might see lances like Jager, Cataphract, Shadowhawk, Hunchback (240), or Highlander, Blackjack, Jenner, Cataphract (240).

The biggest issue is that everyone wants to be that big bad assault. And what's more fun than being that big bad assault? Bringing your 3 friends along who are in the same big bad assault. I believe it's part of the reason why games are so lopsided. if your 4-man assault team is very good, you crush. If they are bad, you screw your team. Splitting tonnage more or less evenly between lances spreads the responsibility more equally. The people who are going be hurt most by weight caps are the top Elo players who are currently taking advantage of 3-4 assault teams. They'll be less able to influence the outcome of a match and are likely to get very angry when they start losing more games than they are accustomed to.

Plus it makes game modes like Deathmatch more feasible because it can't just devolve into 12 assaults vs 12 assaults.

Edited by Jman5, 12 November 2013 - 01:19 PM.