427 replies to this topic

[Vassago Rain]

Kitane, on 11 October 2013 - 03:22 AM, said:

There isn't a 50t mech in the game that would be even remotely comparable to Atlas.

Weight limits will make the game more medium friendly.

Data from matches gathered in Allistair's thread tell us that the current average composition is:
~40% heavy mechs
~25% assault mechs
~18% medium mechs
17% light mechs

That means that 65% of enemies outclass the medium mech (25% massively), 20% give him an equal chance, and 20% are weaker (arguably) than him. Those are horrible odds. Horrible. That is the main reason why medium mechs are unpopular, why they are "bad".

The weight limits will reduce the average weight to ~55t, which will instantly ease the pressure a medium mech faces in combat, giving him multiple enemies that are either comparable or weaker. The mech will still struggle against 65t+ heavy mechs and assault mechs, but there will be only few of them to deal with.

You look at the gold standard, aka, the 35 point alphastrike. A simple jenner with 6 med lasers can do this. Math says a 50 tonner will have a side torso armor of 48+24 internal, which usually translates into 8 on the rear, and everything else on the front, so 64.

With two simple blasts, I'll have inflicted 70 damage, which is 6 damage more than a 50 tonner has hitpoints. Meanwhile, a 35 tonner has 32+16 internal, and usually puts 6 points on the rear, for a 42 hitpoint total on the side, which means...it takes two gold standard strikes to kill the light, too. Ergo, I am spending about 10 seconds killing a 50 tonner that's sunk half its tonnage into an engine that still won't make it move as fast as my jenner or raven, and it still takes 10 seconds for the medium to kill me. Meanwhile, a 65 tonner has a 71+ hitpoint total on the side.

This translates into 3 gold standard blasts, which HUGELY ups the durability. You go from 10 seconds to maybe 15. That's a 50% increase, without costing speed, and they carry more weapons. So I can be in a big, slow bucket, a small, fast jenner, or a smaller than the bucket, faster catapult.

There is a serious problem here, and the math just spells it out. Why is it so hard to understand? You can't have huge mediums, because they have less hitpoint total than the others, on the same surface area.

A weight limit WILL NOT bring mediums back, because no one even owns them,. Why would you own them? It's almost the same c-bills for a heavy (many times, less, due to them often taking the 300 engines). A weight limit's only going to lead to more lights and assaults, as people stack the best of the best ton for ton against each other. 50 tons of cent is a lot worse than 35 tons of raven 3L.

Every medium should be scaled around hunchbacks and blackjacks. Period. It's too easy to take off whatever part I want, they are slow, they have bad hardpoints, and they are fragile.

[Vassago Rain]

Someone will now say 'step up.' I'm saving you the trouble.



I know how to do this. Mediums aren't special snowflake robots.

[Prezimonto]

The thing to realize is that economics drove the viability of the medium mech, not battlefield superiority. They're the most cost effective mech to use in the setting for nearly everything. NOT the best at anything, but versatile.

This doesn't translate very well into a game without an overarching setting with a working economy. There is no supply and demand, there are no game modes where BEING versatile is a good thing... that would only come with objective based game play.

Tonnage limits will help.

Roland's market based battle value system would help a LOT more and also work on balancing lots of other issues.

A cbill buff isn't bad, but as others have mentioned it doesn't actually make mediums, "better".... That's why a market based Battle Value system incorporated into matching would be much better, because you can weight each mech based on scarcity and use. If mediums comprise a HUGE proportion of available mechs and we're not using them, their battle value goes down, they get "cheaper" to field... you become more likely to succeed in a medium mech as it's matched against worse opponents.

[Kitane]

Vassago Rain, on 11 October 2013 - 04:44 AM, said:

You look at the gold standard, aka, the 35 point alphastrike. A simple jenner with 6 med lasers can do this. Math says a 50 tonner will have a side torso armor of 48+24 internal, which usually translates into 8 on the rear, and everything else on the front, so 64.

With two simple blasts, I'll have inflicted 70 damage, which is 6 damage more than a 50 tonner has hitpoints. Meanwhile, a 35 tonner has 32+16 internal, and usually puts 6 points on the rear, for a 42 hitpoint total on the side, which means...it takes two gold standard strikes to kill the light, too. Ergo, I am spending about 10 seconds killing a 50 tonner that's sunk half its tonnage into an engine that still won't make it move as fast as my jenner or raven, and it still takes 10 seconds for the medium to kill me. Meanwhile, a 65 tonner has a 71+ hitpoint total on the side.

This translates into 3 gold standard blasts, which HUGELY ups the durability. You go from 10 seconds to maybe 15. That's a 50% increase, without costing speed, and they carry more weapons. So I can be in a big, slow bucket, a small, fast jenner, or a smaller than the bucket, faster catapult.

There is a serious problem here, and the math just spells it out. Why is it so hard to understand? You can't have huge mediums, because they have less hitpoint total than the others, on the same surface area.

A weight limit WILL NOT bring mediums back, because no one even owns them,. Why would you own them? It's almost the same c-bills for a heavy (many times, less, due to them often taking the 300 engines). A weight limit's only going to lead to more lights and assaults, as people stack the best of the best ton for ton against each other. 50 tons of cent is a lot worse than 35 tons of raven 3L.

Every medium should be scaled around hunchbacks and blackjacks. Period. It's too easy to take off whatever part I want, they are slow, they have bad hardpoints, and they are fragile.

That is nonsense. I understand what you are talking about, but you are vastly over-exaggerating capabilities of light mechs. 35 alpha is not typical for light mechs. Jenner F does 30 points of damage, and 99% of the time it will not hit the same spot of the moving medium mech for full 30 points. Assault? Maybe, but not a medium mech. Jenner D has a higher alpha, but SRMs are not focused damage.

The size problem is overplayed, it's the speed and hitbox layout that makes it more difficult to hitting a specific part of a mech. Hitting a part of 118km/h Kintaro is more difficult than hitting the same part of a 90km/h Hunchback. Hunchbacks and Blackjacks are both correctly sized, yet they are still so trivial to hit, it's nearly impossible to miss them. Even Ravens, Jenners and especially Cicadas that lack the speed tweak are quite easy to hit.

Anyway, the introduction of a weight limit will present a new scenario:

How do you feel about two Hunchbacks going against Jenner and Jagermech? Or Spider and Cataphract? Or Commando and Orion? Or Locust and Victor?

I would call that a balanced fight.

[Joseph Mallan]

Kitane, on 11 October 2013 - 03:22 AM, said:

There isn't a 50t mech in the game that would be even remotely comparable to Atlas.

I'm Sorry... Its not the size of the weapon but the skill of the fighter. I used Centurion-As to hunt Atlases all the time. Manuvering behind them and pummeling 'em with my AC10 and other weapons.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 11 October 2013 - 05:36 AM.

[Accursed Richards]

Joseph Mallan, on 11 October 2013 - 05:35 AM, said:

I'm Sorry... Its not the size of the weapon but the skill of the fighter. I used Centurion-As to hunt Atlases all the time. Manuvering behind them and pummeling 'em with my AC10 and other weapons.

Now imagine how much better you'd have done with a heavy that had more weapons, more armour, the same speed and slightly less manouverability....and the same hitbox!

Edited by Accursed Richards, 11 October 2013 - 05:40 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Accursed Richards, on 11 October 2013 - 05:40 AM, said:

Now imagine how much better you'd have done with a heavy that had more weapons, more armour, the same speed and slightly less manouverability....and the same hitbox!

Until the Orion (My Marauder) I had less success with the heavies in the game than my Centurions. Understand I stomp the yard most in a D-DC, but to say that Mediums are bad is wrong. How we use a Medium is what is wrong. My Centurion-D has a 2.0 K/D My D-DC has a 1.3.

[Karl Streiger]

Accursed Richards, on 11 October 2013 - 05:40 AM, said:

Now imagine how much better you'd have done with a heavy that had more weapons, more armour, the same speed and slightly less manouverability....and the same hitbox!

the upcomming 55ts will make Dragon and Quickdraw obsolete. I'm pretty sure that I mothballed my Dragons for the Shadow Hawks

[Kitane]

Joseph Mallan, on 11 October 2013 - 05:35 AM, said:

I'm Sorry... Its not the size of the weapon but the skill of the fighter. I used Centurion-As to hunt Atlases all the time. Manuvering behind them and pummeling 'em with my AC10 and other weapons.

I was talking about mech scale.

Edited by Kitane, 11 October 2013 - 05:56 AM.

[Ghogiel]

Mehlan, on 11 October 2013 - 04:35 AM, said:

Well considering pgi made some commentary about levels... might it fall better to high lvl to lower, if/when it's ever implemented? There have been some 'founders' Im not real impressed with their display of intelligence or combat ability.

As long as some players are forced to use lighter mechs and I get to rein supreme over them like a god of war in an assault mech, then tonnage limits are a good idea. It'll be much better when there are less assaults out there and I get to dunk on all the mediums filling up the battlefield.

[Joseph Mallan]

Kitane, on 11 October 2013 - 05:55 AM, said:

I was talking about mech scale.

Oh! Sarry!

[Roland]

Prezimonto, on 11 October 2013 - 04:51 AM, said:

Roland's market based battle value system would help a LOT more and also work on balancing lots of other issues.

A market based system will effectively automatically just balance things. Mechs and weapons that are deemed best will be automatically penalized, which will have the effect of pushing other mechs into the field.

Since there are issues with using the market to affect cost on the front end, I like the idea of attaching the market's "cost" to the back-end. That is, the "bad" mechs would have increased cbill earnings, compared to the "good" mechs.

Use sub-standard weapons on substandard chassis, and get huge earnings bonuses.

This would result in a wider variety of mechs and weapons used, while not actually FORCING anyone to change their play if they don't want to. It just provides additional incentive.

A carrot rather than a stick approach.

[Aeolus Drift]

Roland, on 09 October 2013 - 10:36 AM, said:

Make medium mechs not suck so bad.

Mediums should be smaller than heavy mechs. The biggest medium should be smaller than the smallest heavy. Mech tonnage should translate DIRECTLY into mech volume.

Yeah, I understand that this may not be how it would be in the real world. I DO NOT GIVE A ****.

Gameplay trumps realism. You need to have mech volume and tonnage directly correlated, or else stuff doesn't work right.

Keep in mind though that some mechs, like the dragon, were specifically stated to be much more squat then other mech designs for their weight.

[Barantor]

Johnny Reb, on 10 October 2013 - 09:14 PM, said:

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

Won't happen without weight limits or something outside of what BT and MW have been for a long time. The small maps encourage heavy use since you aren't hampered by speed much and when you are it is mostly about caps in which light mechs hold out until the big mechs get there.

Big maps where fights happen for 5 minutes before the slower heavies and assaults can get there? Then it might happen a bit more. Weight limits? Might squeeze an atlas in, but someone has to take a hunchback instead of a cataphract.

That is the sort of thing that will encourage it, but honestly it is going to have to be forced like that. For Pugs the shiny works, and honestly until there is something to fight for that is probably fine.

[FupDup]

Vassago Rain, on 11 October 2013 - 04:44 AM, said:

Every medium should be scaled around hunchbacks and blackjacks. Period. It's too easy to take off whatever part I want, they are slow, they have bad hardpoints, and they are fragile.

Actually, I'd say that even the Hunchback and Blackjack are too large if we compare them to lights and heavies:


Right now the Hunchie and BJ are basically the size of "small heavies" when really what they need to be is "slightly larger lights."

Edited by FupDup, 11 October 2013 - 06:33 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

I'm not saying they should double internal life, which would put sub 55 tonners that can't manage the magical 71 hitpoints per side torso on par with said 71 hitpoint mechs, but they should totally double internal life.

Until they do, it's all about mediums that die in as many shots as lights.

[Dawnstealer]

I think it's also the variety of mediums out there. In the next few months, with Saber and Phoenix dropping, we're going to get the Shadowhawk, Griffin, and Wolverine. Just people grinding those out will bump up the numbers, and I know in my case, I'll probably run the Wolverine more often than not, regardless of its survivability, because I love that mech.

[GoManGo]

Vassago Rain, on 11 October 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:

I'm not saying they should double internal life, which would put sub 55 tonners that can't manage the magical 71 hitpoints per side torso on par with said 71 hitpoint mechs, but they should totally double internal life.

Until they do, it's all about mediums that die in as many shots as lights.

The sad thing is im playing more Hawken than MWO because of no mech balance and longevity of mechs. Plus the fact I got tired of the low Cibill grind. Then few game modes and no meta or CW. What's really sad is I can take a B class hawken mech and average 1+ kills per battle and each mech averages over 5 minutes of game play before its trashed and dead.Why because the game requires a lot of skill to stay alive the mechs are much better at defense and maneuverability. Hawken is fun and quite a challenge once you get playing it.

[Vassago Rain]

Dawnstealer, on 11 October 2013 - 06:39 AM, said:

I think it's also the variety of mediums out there. In the next few months, with Saber and Phoenix dropping, we're going to get the Shadowhawk, Griffin, and Wolverine. Just people grinding those out will bump up the numbers, and I know in my case, I'll probably run the Wolverine more often than not, regardless of its survivability, because I love that mech.

I used to say this about the bucket and the quickdraw, but being the size of an atlas is an easy way to kill any and all feelings of love for your gundams.

[oldradagast]

Roland, on 11 October 2013 - 06:12 AM, said:

A market based system will effectively automatically just balance things. Mechs and weapons that are deemed best will be automatically penalized, which will have the effect of pushing other mechs into the field.

Since there are issues with using the market to affect cost on the front end, I like the idea of attaching the market's "cost" to the back-end. That is, the "bad" mechs would have increased cbill earnings, compared to the "good" mechs.

Use sub-standard weapons on substandard chassis, and get huge earnings bonuses.

This would result in a wider variety of mechs and weapons used, while not actually FORCING anyone to change their play if they don't want to. It just provides additional incentive.

A carrot rather than a stick approach.

The game needs more carrots. We've had plenty of sticks - Repair and Rearm, and now reduced Cbill earnings...

The concept of a dynamic reward system that scales up as the popularity of a mech decreases is a neat idea. It'll give folks a reason to try "hard mode" other than just because they can.

This, plus tonnage limits, would go a long way I think to adding more kinds of mechs on the battlefield.