68 replies to this topic

[Captain Stiffy]

LoganMkv, on 11 October 2013 - 03:15 AM, said:

So, what if we stop trying to balance things which were not supposed to be balanced, but go full nuts and try to make just a good skirmish game in "alternative universe" to BT with any means imaginable?

[culverin]

Technoviking, on 11 October 2013 - 12:48 PM, said:

I find things harder to hit when I am moving and my opponent is moving. How is that thrown out? Sorry that so many of us are 0/0 pilots. My kids are 3/4 pilots and can't hit the broadside of a barn at a good clip. Seems accurate, just imagine that you are playing a BT mech game with all vet pilots.

Because you are.

Oh, if you're putting it that way.
Since so many of us are 0/0 pilots, can we raise the skill floor?

[xMEPHISTOx]

SmithMPBT, on 11 October 2013 - 01:31 PM, said:

They need to hire some of those russian Warthunder guys and pay them in vodka till its done. It's a beautiful game with active NPCs/bases etc and they seem to have popped it out pretty quick. Russia FTW.

^^^Agreed...Russians apparently make good games (wt and wot) and would seem to have a more focused direction but then again they were not buying into a game with over 20 years of history and a TT version prior to that.
Like with Disney buying the star wars franchise of which they may or may not completely screw up. But either way many of us will be harsh on them as it is something we grew up with. So to does PGI have to deal with same from all the long time BT/MW gamers.

Edited by xMEPHISTOx, 11 October 2013 - 07:09 PM.

[culverin]

PGI has guys from table top days don't they?

I would love to hear their water cooler talk about this game.

[General Taskeen]

Its seems PGI is mixing idea's together, rather than being cohesive. Translating TT to real-time is tricky business at best.

The #1 thing that matters to me for MechWarrior to be like Battletech is retaining the build rules. As long as a Mech is the correct tonnage, and every weapon or piece of equipment weighs the tonnage it is supposed to and takes up the proper critical slots, then that feels "BattleTech"y to me. This has been done very well so far, its the other area's that need serious attention.

The second most important aspect, which is lacking, is the heat scaling. Every MechWarrior game in existence, but MWO, used the idea of the fixed heat scaling in order to emulate the "0 to 30" heat scale from the Table Top. Each of those games, to some varying degree, added in a little flavor in that translation. Examples: MW3 - Your hud can flicker out; MW4 - Ehhh, I don't remember, it did something else besides raise the heat though, at least in mods and Mech Paks; MW:LL - Proper modeled the over critical threshold heat - I.E., if you are over-riding into the critical zone your Mech takes continual damage to the armor, then your heatsinks automatically degrade/become destroyed under stress, then your weapons/engine are next.

MWO's pseudo-scaling really has messed things up - and heat stacking penalties is merely a bandaid to remedy it. And that's the cold hard truth.

What PGI should have done or should do is take what worked in the previous games, the idea of the "fixed scale," (where both SHS and DHS are effective, dissipate heat fast) and expanded it - Examples:

• Mech at 25-30% heat, your Mech loses a little bit of top speed, but once cooled down, the speed returns.
  
• Mech at 50% heat, something to do with aiming? Hud flickering or torso weapons losing convergence?
  
• Mech at 75% heat, Your Mech loses a lot more speed, but again once cooled down, the speed returns.
  
• Mech at 90% heat, chance of ammo exploding. Hud is flickering constantly.
  
• Mech at 100% Auto Shut Down.
  
• Mech Over ride - up to 120-130% - Heatsinks degrade/become destroyed->Armor starts to peel away->all remaining ammo explodes->internal weapons and engine take damage (in that order)
  
• The ENTIRE scale from 0% to 130% should be visually represented, the over critical should not be hidden. It should also use better color coding from Blue, Green, Yellow, to Red displayed along side of it.

After that there is the problem of weapons and equipment - Concern #3. As long as the weapon acts as you expect it to, then that's all that matters. Problem #2, as listed above, interferes with this due to less cohesion in weapon functionality in combination with the pseudo heat scale (for instance, 15 SHS should just as effective as 8DHS to cool down a single ER PPC rather quickly). In some cases, exact damage values can work with different types of functionality, rather than all damage up-front at once.

• Lasers are really the only balanced weapons in my view - the duration was a good factor in translation to real-time while retaining the damage values.
  
• Pulse Lasers however, make less sense.
  
• AC's/UAC's retained exact damage values - hard to balance, especially for UAC's. At the very least, they should try adding in alternate AC's that fire faster and burst fire (several bullets that extend up to their 'damage yield' for their weight).
  
• LB-X - Without additional damage for clusters, makes less sense in real-time - (LRMs are spread weapons, and the damage was increased, which makes sense).
  
• PPC's should not have a min-range in a real time game, and if to remain should be given a Field Inhibitor. Easier to balance by longer cool downs, and bonus of transferring heat to target (like previous games)
  
• Gauss easier to balance simply by increasing the cool down.
  
• SRM/LRM should be fast-firing ripple fire missile systems like how they were in Mech Warrior 2 (seriously those were cool).
  
• ECM is blocking both indirect and direct fire of missile systems. ECM should only be blocking indirect fire of missiles. Example -> A friendly Mech spots another Mech that you can't see with a C3 Master, TAG, or NARC, so now you can fire at it indirectly. An ECM Mech comes along and blocks the NARC missile, or the Mech carrying TAG or C3 Master, and suddenly you can't fire your missiles indirectly, you have to go in LOS to fire at the ECM Mech and the other one with your LRMs now).

Edited by General Taskeen, 11 October 2013 - 08:44 PM.

[CeeKay Boques]

culverin, on 11 October 2013 - 06:46 PM, said:

Oh, if you're putting it that way.
Since so many of us are 0/0 pilots, can we raise the skill floor?

I would love for this to be way more simmy. There are tons of rules in BT, and hell, physics that have not been explored. Absolutely. Adding a d6 dice roll to hitting is not doing that (cone of fire). Even trees that worked would add something forest battles. More to think about more to do, more to calculate please.

Edited by Technoviking, 11 October 2013 - 09:16 PM.

[Slash Beastleo]

The battlefields in this game seem so lifeless sometimes....

[Hexenhammer]

LoganMkv, on 11 October 2013 - 03:15 AM, said:

The premise is simple - it's clear now that MWO is never going to be well-integrated into BT setting.

Mechwarriors in BT are never limited to deathmatching equal amount of mechs on well-known small areas with any customization available.

They coexist with infantry, vehicles, aircraft, immobile turrets, dropships, minefields, and so on.

They are very limited in supply, customization and deployment, fight in huge hostile unknown environments, do very different missions, but mostly prioritize pilot survival and positive salvage/loss ratio over mission success.

That's why there's no balance concern in BT. All weapons and mechs have their use. Medium stock mechs are most common ones in universe, because of their cost/utility efficiency. Rusty mech with 2xAC2 and nothing more may be crucial for mission success cause it's main AA weapon. Most mechwarriors would like to have at least LRM5 available, cause it means possibility to stay away from harm. Noone cares if boating 6x ppc is balanced, cause such mech is vulnerable to a bunch of things. JJs are very important, cuase you can't know if there's conviniently placed ramp round the next corner. It's possible to continue the list for a long time.


So, what if we stop trying to balance things which were not supposed to be balanced, but go full nuts and try to make just a good skirmish game in "alternative universe" to BT with any means imaginable?

You want aero space, infantry, etc like MW: LL

Edited by Hexenhammer, 11 October 2013 - 09:48 PM.

[CeeKay Boques]

Slash Beastleo, on 11 October 2013 - 09:19 PM, said:

The battlefields in this game seem so lifeless sometimes....

Double the activity and if even if coded cleanly, add a lot to the cpu overhead, maybe.

Quote

[color=#959595]They coexist with infantry, vehicles, aircraft, immobile turrets, dropships, minefields, and so on.[/color]

[color=#959595]They are very limited in supply, customization and deployment, fight in huge hostile unknown environments, do very different missions, but mostly prioritize pilot survival and positive salvage/loss ratio over mission success.[/color]

[color=#959595]That's why there's no balance concern in BT. All weapons and mechs have their use. Medium stock mechs are most common ones in universe, because of their cost/utility efficiency. Rusty mech with 2xAC2 and nothing more may be crucial for mission success cause it's main AA weapon. Most mechwarriors would like to have at least LRM5 available, cause it means possibility to stay away from harm. Noone cares if boating 6x ppc is balanced, cause such mech is vulnerable to a bunch of things. JJs are very important, cuase you can't know if there's conviniently placed ramp round the next corner. It's possible to continue the list for a long time.[/color]

What if you could buy AI versions of these like artillery modules? A swarm of helicopters that paint targets and fire a AC2 assault. Maybe 1-7 depending on Mermidons to little crysis guys. I'm still the Mechwarrior, but I conduct a war like a boss! We coordinate our 1-4 modluar units as best we can. You are the Jedi general.

[culverin]

General Taskeen,

Best post I have seen on the MWO forums ever.

Your heat scale is very generous.
Do you like it hot?

[LoganMkv]

Volthorne, on 11 October 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

And exactly how big is the playerbase for EVE? Probably roughly the same size as MWO's right now (maybe a bit smaller? I only see 886 playing EVE right now via Steam), and EVE has been out for years (like what, seven? eight?). The only reason that CCP can afford to keep the servers online is the players they do have are forced to pay through the nose for everything (and the people who can "play for free" by farming up enough soft-currency each month - the chunks of time they purchase have to be originally purchased from CCP by SOMEONE, right?).

Not to mention that this "better things cost money and can be permanently destroyed" is a garbage idea. Then only a handful of players would wreck face, get Clan Tech and then wreck even more face, forcing everyone else to use {Scrap}-tech.

This thread gets a 0/10. Terrible idea, terrible execution. Oh, and your arguments suck (for good measure).

I'm not sure if you are trolling or just don't have an idea about the subject. If latter:

EVE population is much higher than one of MWO.

You are not forced to pay at all. Playing for free the first month may be hard, but for the second one it is doable simply if you don't waste your finances, and for 3+ it's easy as pie as long as you do minimal pve (doing ONE highlevel site may net you 2 month sub worth). People buy codes because they don't want to do pve at all, or sell them for instant cash, or even invest into the game, hoping to rmt out with profit.

You don't have troubles losing ships as long as you don't pilot ones you can't afford to lose. A month-old noob earns enough to buy a small frigate in 30 minutes - and that's what he is supposed to pilot. Experienced players earn much more, and pilot whatever they want.

Having financial upperhand can't grant you victory. You can be outnembered, outwited, etc. Even biggest alliances with huge finances, best commanders and pilots evetually fall due to the human factor.

Now what really makes BT different from EVE - mechs and everything else in BT can't warp, even jumpships require a lot of time for jumping. And players are not likely to enjoy marching 50km at 40kph, or wait for 2 hrs in a dropship. If one can solve this problem, everything else is not that hard to implement.

P.s. ^this obviously has nothing to do with actual MWO title, as I stated in the first post, I don't believe we are getting anything more than skirmish at this rate.

[Marmon Rzohr]

culverin, on 11 October 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

The rule books were based off 30 seconds.
It's not that they should throw the rulebooks away.
They should be following them first.

Then instead of re-inventing tried, tested and true mechanics which are crictical to the balance of the weight, damage and crit slots,
They should tweak with "real time" balancing balancing issues:
- Weapon recycle rates.
- Cone-of-fire convergence rates for the different weapons.



Please don't blame the jump jets.
Blame the fact they they through out movement accuracy penalties.

If those existed.
Jump sniping wouldn't even be possible.

It's not that the existing rules should be completely thrown away, just that they should be used if they fit and ignored at all other times. Movment penalties and stuff like that need to be implemented, I agree completely, but some things could benefit form a total revision. For instance, since there are no light vehicles, aircraft, helicopters, infantry etc in MWO, weapons like the MG need to be given a new meaning. (you can't simply give them more damage, that would make them OP)

Even in table top BT, a great deal of weapons went unsued if you had the resources to pick what you want. That's kinda the problem. A UAC5 is a superior weapon to the AC5 in nearly every way. The only reason you would take it is if you lacked the extra 2 tons and 2 crit spaces. And that's as intended. Many weapons in BT are clearly superior to others because they represent technological advancement. Barring weapon restrictions being implemented in MWO, some weapons will simply stay irrelevant forever. Like the AC10. (Not saying useless, but far less relevant in serious games, and PvP, in the end is all about making the competition fun and varied)

That's why you could design weapons around a specific role and mech type. Like saying "ok, AC2s are the lightest cannon, and can be carried by lighter ballistic bearing mechs. What kind of role can these mechs perform, and how could we make the AC2 help them do that?". (just an example)

P.S. I would like to add that, in theory this sounds interesing, but in practice, some weapons will always go unused, so that's ok, but overpowering tactics need adjustment (e.i. poptarting)

[Kuritaclan]

These TT-fetishists ******* me off. Come on, we don't need a TT. If you want play TT go do it. This is a "multiplayer shooter" with big steal boys. The core is inside. Everything around it will evolve to become good (hopefully) with time and without the need to be the TT version of it. If PGI takes bonds of TT that's ok, but they don't have to. I rather play a game that feels as if it was made all out of one piece, than as it looks like a composite of all possible concepts surrounding the BT-Universe.

[Gozer]

You know, it's posts like the original one that makes me think that an ARMA 3 mod that would add battlmechs would be awesome.

No seriously hear me out.

Arma 3 already has an engine designed to have huge amounts of mixed unit types, in a large "no limit" world. All it needs is Mechs added to get started.

Been meaning to bring it up to the ARMA 3 community...

[Waking One]

BT balanced, everything useful?

What?

[Narcissistic Martyr]

I would play the hell out of a game with actual goals like the table top mechwarrior RPG games I used to play.

[Claviger]

OP: It is too much for PGI, this will never be the BT game so many want. EVER. EVAAAR.

Volthorne, on 11 October 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

And exactly how big is the playerbase for EVE? Probably roughly the same size as MWO's right now (maybe a bit smaller? I only see 886 playing EVE right now via Steam), and EVE has been out for years (like what, seven? eight?). The only reason that CCP can afford to keep the servers online is the players they do have are forced to pay through the nose for everything (and the people who can "play for free" by farming up enough soft-currency each month - the chunks of time they purchase have to be originally purchased from CCP by SOMEONE, right?).

Not to mention that this "better things cost money and can be permanently destroyed" is a garbage idea. Then only a handful of players would wreck face, get Clan Tech and then wreck even more face, forcing everyone else to use {Scrap}-tech.

This thread gets a 0/10. Terrible idea, terrible execution. Oh, and your arguments suck (for good measure).

Steam numbers are VERY far from accurate. It's also a high risk hardcore pvp game with a subscription model for income and has pretty much zero business being compared to an instanced 12v12 deathmatch with ZERO death penalty game...

Load the EVE login screen to see how many in game. Try like 50k ish 23/7. About 400k active users last i looked.

Edited by Claviger, 18 November 2013 - 08:37 AM.

[sokitumi]

Game needs AI, game needs destructible environments. (Or should I say 'needed'?)

Yeah the combat as it is, is good enough regardless of the constant complaints about w/e fotm weapon. BUT, a mechwarrior game in 2013 without those 2 things mentioned above is decidedly lacking...

Without them, you'll never 'achieve' turrets, convoys, maybe dropships, etc etc etc... you wont even achieve a proper tutorial without at least a modicum of AI.

I've been saying this repeatedly since CB, and it's fallen largely on deaf ears or an unreceptive audience. Which is kind of embarassing for this crowd and dev team tbh. This is crytek ffs... an engine that excels at the things MW needs. I think learning the engine has been nothing but headaches for PGI, while remaining completely underutilized. Bad choice maybe?

Mechassault understood the purpose of mechs while totally missing the feel. This is the exact opposite of that.

Edited by sokitumi, 18 November 2013 - 09:07 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Mehlan, on 11 October 2013 - 11:19 AM, said:

There are people here (This forum) stating and/or implying that they should not be able to...

LOL! Funny that eh. Given that ANY Mech that carries a weapon can fight and thus contribute, the amount of fight and contribution is simply a state of degrees. A poor Atlas pilot will fight and yet often contribute LESS than another Light pilot...

Oh {Scrap}, that is what "they" see as the problem right? They are those Assault pilots... Go figure that eh.

[Almond Brown]

SmithMPBT, on 11 October 2013 - 01:31 PM, said:

They need to hire some of those russian Warthunder guys and pay them in vodka till its done. It's a beautiful game with active NPCs/bases etc and they seem to have popped it out pretty quick. Russia FTW.

LOL! See...this is the kind of BS stuff that gets my goat. Gets your facts straight folks..ffs.

Warthunder:

Quote

The development of the game as World of Planes began in 2009.