228 replies to this topic

[Krumenool]

This of course applies to playing as PUGs, as it isn't bad to have "high alpha meta" when playing in a well coordinated team using teampspeak. But again, its different from playing in a PUG team, and a different playstyle looks more fun to me then.

[Khobai]

Quote

This of course applies to playing as PUGs, as it isn't bad to have "high alpha meta" when playing in a well coordinated team using teampspeak. But again, its different from playing in a PUG team, and a different playstyle looks more fun to me then.

Its bad regardless. Because whats the point of having multiple hit locations if everyone aims for the center torso almost exclusively? We might as well just have one hit location. Its not good game design to have multiple hit locations when most of them arnt worth targetting. Center torsos need significantly more internal structure, if CT arnt destroyed as fast, then players would consider shooting out less protected locations first to disarm the mech.

Edited by Khobai, 22 October 2013 - 07:39 PM.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

Khobai, on 22 October 2013 - 07:34 PM, said:

Its bad regardless. Because whats the point of having multiple hit locations if everyone aims for the center torso almost exclusively? We might as well just have one hit location. Its not good game design to have multiple hit locations when most of them arnt worth targetting.

Yes, I too play only my CT exposed and do not torso twist at all. Since spreading damage is useless, might as well count even legs as CT.

C'mon, you're over simplifying things

[Khobai]

Quote

Yes, I too play only my CT exposed and do not torso twist at all. Since spreading damage is useless, might as well count even legs as CT.

torso twisting is situational at best. And it will not help you against players that wait to line up their shots.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

Khobai, on 22 October 2013 - 07:47 PM, said:

And it will not help you against players that wait to line up their shots.

Which is situational also. Everything's situational, like aiming at side torso or legs instead of CT, so why don't you stop making dull generalizations as the truth?

[Xanquil]

I love the "just torso twist" to avoid coring responses. Torso twisting more often than not will not save you, the bigger the mech the less it helps. And some mecs get cored from the side because of the hit boxes. High alpha damage and boating would not even be an issue if the weapons didn't all hit the same location.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

Yeah sorry I was wrong. Everyone has kaffeangst's aim, very fast reflexes and the ability to ignore other people in team while waiting only to get a shot to your CT in the heat of the battle.

Of course torso twist won't save you if you're in **** situation. Spread the damage. Yeah with your arguments there would be no whining about Cent's "broken" hitboxes or similiar.

You are over simplifying things.

[Lightfoot]

We have two reticles and the three weapon types all hit slightly different areas now. Energy goes straight, Ballistics drop as distance increases, Missiles do area damage. That's de-convergence in a realistic way which is what sims should do.

What you want to spread damage is to insist that PGI increases the recharge time to Battletech normals. Usually 6-8 seconds for large weapons. Then you spread the damage yourself by turning a well armored section to your opponent while your weapons recharg. De-Convergence and pinpoint alpha solved in one smart move. You'll like it, it's fun!

Otherwise, forget it because PGI will just respond with more weird nerfs like Ghost Heat.

[Xanquil]

Saying "just torso twist" is over simplifying things too, and does nothing to change weapons fired at the same time from hitting the same location. The issue is pinpoint accuracy vs a hit location system that was never designed for it. Not to complicated of an issue to be honest.

[FupDup]

Lightfoot, on 22 October 2013 - 08:12 PM, said:

We have two reticles and the three weapon types all hit slightly different areas now. Energy goes straight, Ballistics drop as distance increases, Missiles do area damage. That's de-convergence in a realistic way which is what sims should do.

What you want to spread damage is to insist that PGI increases the recharge time to Battletech normals. Usually 6-8 seconds for large weapons. Then you spread the damage yourself by turning a well armored section to your opponent while your weapons recharg. De-Convergence and pinpoint alpha solved in one smart move. You'll like it, it's fun!

Otherwise, forget it because PGI will just respond with more weird nerfs like Ghost Heat.

All slowing down cooldown rates would do is just further promote the peek-shoot-hide-repeat gameplay.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

Xanquil, on 22 October 2013 - 08:22 PM, said:

Saying "just torso twist" is over simplifying things too, and does nothing to change weapons fired at the same time from hitting the same location. The issue is pinpoint accuracy vs a hit location system that was never designed for it. Not to complicated of an issue to be honest.

Apparently you are talking about different subject. I argued against Khobai's claim that only CT gets hit and other hit locations are not worth targetting as if the opposing player has no means to spread damage to other locations. That is over simplifying. I thought you were on the same matter but you seem to be talking about pinpoint damage in general.

As for the pinpoint damage, my opinion is that yes, it should perhaps be tweaked. But first fix the HSR problems (especially with SRMs). No moar nerfs/buffs until it's fix'd!

[Artillery Witch Viridia]

FupDup, on 22 October 2013 - 08:23 PM, said:

All slowing down cooldown rates would do is just further promote the peek-shoot-hide-repeat gameplay.

This ^ more poptarting. Also it doesnt matter how many crosshairs you throw on the screen. The game will always favor cabbage patching them around to all hit the same pinpoint target even if they all need to be chain fired. It will skew the numbers to favor the heavier hitting weapon even more like ac20 since you will have to cabbage patch fewer weapons around.
If you favor hardpoint restrictions like this ...

Bounty Dogg, on 22 October 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

And THAT, RIGHT THERE, is why we have the issues that we do. Its not pinpoint convergence vs. multi-aim reticles. Its not convergence vs. RNG aiming. Its the fact that we, as players, can CHANGE OUR LOADOUT with no consequences at all.

I simply say wtf do you want. This is mechwarrior. It's about building your robot and customizing with what you want to shoot on it. I dunno about you but no decent warrior or merc runs stock, we pilot OUR mechs. Lets all use single heat sinks and 1 lrm 5 while we are at it. We build up our c-bills. Earn our mechs, then smash face with the weapons we want. The abbility to customize your robot into what you want is much of the allure. I have been playing since the dos floppy days of Mechwarrior franchise and building our varied mechs is the game after earning your way to your desired mechs and loadout that is. Forcing players into stock builds or extremely weapon restricted builds depending on the mech and slot would not help. The game would still favor the most pinpoint advantaged stock builds or the easiest to cabbage patch reticles around. This would even lower the variety further than most of what is being complained about now. That's a no win situation in a game that a big selling point is customizing your way. The only meta game I see needing to go is the poptart meta game. Disable fire during and after jumpjets for a few seconds. Also ecm meta needs adjustments to save our endangered species lrm users. Beyond the overwhelming poptart:online feel to the game currently. If you are experiencing lack of weapon variety, and feel top tier mechs need to be extremely selective of only one or two weapons to be competitive, then I suggest you think outside the box a bit harder when designing mechs. Or stop copying cookie cutter builds from a website or a "pro" squads forum and think up something different. I find great variety in my mech designs and not all are created equally to handle every map and situation but most are well rounded and have pros and cons. Now if I can just get my those Atlas' gorilla arms off the ground when piloting that mech and firing my weapons. Even to be able to chose which arm hardpoint location a weapon is assigned to might help a tab in that regard but honestly they feel way too low and are gimped on most terrain of many maps poptarts aside. My other mechs and the ones I will purchase in the future seem perfectly fine. I still think the spider has hitbox issues in it's benefit though. Jump jets seem to warp hitboxes around as well no matter the mech, teabagging the JJ button even though there is no way you could miss that big slow flying brick seems to be in their benefit. Throw some more game modes and destructible environments in, (fix the terrain hitboxes while we are at it, they often extend way past visually wherever terrian building or anything is located causing skillfully placed shots around object to waste ammo or fizzle while the terrain hugger can then return fire sometimes even through what you cant shoot them through, even more awesome not being able to shoot half your weapons while being on the side of a hill or next to a building) then I think this game will have it made.

[NextGame]

the high alpha is considerably more fun than managing a variety of weapons (although much less than it was prior to the aberration that is ghost heat). Certainly doesn't need nerfed.

What needs to happen instead is that players need to learn to play with it as being a valid approach to the game rather than moaning about it.

[Antarus]

Steel Claws, on 19 October 2013 - 05:58 PM, said:

Nothing is stopping anyone from playing without alphas. In point of fact I see someone shooting either groups or chain fire in nearly every match I play in. Every Mechwarrior game that has ever came out was in large part played out with the alpha strike. That is not to say that chains and groupm fire aren't used extensively or effectively. I use group fire much of the time and chain fire frequently. I think you'd be surprised how many are doing this, but people don't always understand what they are seeing unless it's chained LRMs or AC2/5

Actually, yes, people are stopping anyone from playign a game other than Alpha-whoring, because Nothing. Else. Works.

[Xanquil]

IV Amen, on 22 October 2013 - 08:42 PM, said:

Apparently you are talking about different subject. I argued against Khobai's claim that only CT gets hit and other hit locations are not worth targetting as if the opposing player has no means to spread damage to other locations. That is over simplifying. I thought you were on the same matter but you seem to be talking about pinpoint damage in general.

As for the pinpoint damage, my opinion is that yes, it should perhaps be tweaked. But first fix the HSR problems (especially with SRMs). No moar nerfs/buffs until it's fix'd!

Sorry I some times have issue getting my intended point across.

[MustrumRidcully]

The thing might be that it's not simple an "alpha" or "DPS" meta...

It's a "fastest time to kill meta without being killed yourself" meta, like mostly in any game, I suppose, and whether an alpha strategy works or a sustained DPS strategy works is a question of factors like heat efficiency vs armor and so on.

Quad PPC Stalkers could deal 120 damage before they overheated. 120 damage kills you any 65 ton mech through the CT, if you manage to land all 4 shots.

If you don't land all 4 shots, you had range working for you. You could retreat into cover and the enemy couldn't do much about it until he was close. If he got close, you still probably had a few points of damage advantage over the enemy. Same thing if you were fighting something heavier than 65 tons that migh survive 120 damage to the CT.


Now, PPCs deal 20 to 50 % more heat then they did before. Now you can't deal 120 damage before shutdown. So now you need to find another way to deal deadly amounts of damage.

That is currently doable at range only with Autocannons. Range is good, see the Quad PPC example. And even the lowest range AC/20, has a fairly decent range thanks to the extended max range all ballistics enjoy.

The other great thing is pinpoint precision. It's more difficult to deliver pinpoint precision with a higher ROF and low damage per shot, but it's still much better done with ballistics (other than MG) than with lasers.



I find it difficult to figure out "exact" numbers for how much an advantage particularly the pinpoint advantage is. Maybe it would be easier to just change all auto-cannons to salvo-firing weapons. Of course, that's still only part of it, we still have to look at the heat model... And convergence...

Can I get my own MW:O Server where I can tweak weapon numbers and the heat system?

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 23 October 2013 - 01:46 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Vanguard836, on 22 October 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

ROF plays a hand in that. Not 100% of it but still a part.

TT Gauss damage is 15 no ?
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gauss_Rifle

Correct 15 damage v 1/2 the MW:O armor thus equal to a 30 point hit here. I have a Mech that throws 5 15 point shots per turn. That would be the same as hitting you with 5 30 point hits in MW:O. Nobody complains about it on TT.

[Zyllos]

Joseph Mallan, on 23 October 2013 - 03:38 AM, said:

Correct 15 damage v 1/2 the MW:O armor thus equal to a 30 point hit here. I have a Mech that throws 5 15 point shots per turn. That would be the same as hitting you with 5 30 point hits in MW:O. Nobody complains about it on TT.

That's because they all don't hit a single location, much less choosing were all the damage goes.

[Joseph Mallan]

Zyllos, on 23 October 2013 - 07:17 AM, said:

That's because they all don't hit a single location, much less choosing were all the damage goes.

Still missing the point. Each weapon is doing the same effective damage as a 30 point convergence ALPHA. So I am doing effectively 5 times the damage as a Mech with a 30 point Alpha in MW:O. How long do you think a MW:O Mech would survive taking 150 damage split among 5 locations every salvo? Does MW:O have any Mechs that can pinpoint 150 damage in one salvo? We are complaining about equivalent damage here. one 30 MW:O burst is just the same as a single Gauss hit On TT. We have been taking that kind of damage for 20+ years!!!

And there are/were Clan Mechs that could call 50 points into a single location using a Targeting Computer and 5 large pulse lasers. 50 damage TT=100 damage MW:O.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 23 October 2013 - 07:30 AM.

[Fut]

Noth, on 19 October 2013 - 06:10 PM, said:

If you change that you simply slip into a dps meta as it will become more important to throw out as much damage as possible compared to precision damage. While different, is really no better than the Alpha meta.

Well, there is one way in which a "DPS-Meta" is better - it'd give MW:O more of a Battletech feel.

Of course, so many of the balancing issues of the game would be solved instantly, if PGI introduced an actual Heat Scale and Penalties into the game.

Joseph Mallan, on 23 October 2013 - 03:38 AM, said:

Correct 15 damage v 1/2 the MW:O armor thus equal to a 30 point hit here. I have a Mech that throws 5 15 point shots per turn. That would be the same as hitting you with 5 30 point hits in MW:O. Nobody complains about it on TT.

People don't complain about your 5x 15dmg shots in TT because you can't place all 5 of those shots on the exact same component. Unlike MW:O where you can just single out the the CT with every one of those shots and kill the Mech in under a minute.

Edited by Fut, 23 October 2013 - 07:33 AM.