131 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Here is a bit more on siloing and my idea of splitting modules into different abilities.
http://mwomercs.com/...es-and-siloing/

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 24 October 2013 - 12:47 PM.

[MisterFiveSeven]

Heffay, on 24 October 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

OK. What's your plan B? Cause Plan A isn't feasible.

MisterFiveSeven, on 24 October 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

Cap heat capacity at 30, increase dissipation. Seriously, it's that simple.

I realize you weren't talking to me, but you seem to have glossed right over that little gem.

Khobai, on 24 October 2013 - 10:40 AM, said:

Stricter hardpoints on mechs. Were getting to the point where new mechs are almost identical to existing mechs if not outright inferior. Having stricter hardpoints would go a long way to differentiating each mech and allow PGI to artificially limit damage in a way that adheres to canon. Stricter hardpoints could mean having large and small hardpoints as well as having hardpoints that can only be used for specific weapons (i.e. laser hardpoint that can only be used for lasers)

Changing the hardpoint system does basically the same thing as ghost heat, but does it in a way that isnt arbitrary, and is instead based on the canon loadout and role of each mech.

This will do nothing but eliminate the variety of mechs fielded. There is not enough incentive to use many variants already, and further restricting which ones are good and which ones aren't via additional hard point restrictions is a terrible idea.

PGI makes a lot of silly decisions, but they are spot on on this one.

[Khobai]

Quote

This will do nothing but eliminate the variety of mechs fielded.

On the contrary it will increase variety because every mech will have a unique and balanced loadout. No longer will mechs have similar/identical loadouts, with the mechs that have the best hitboxes and jumpjets being the clear winners. Instead the mechs with the best hitboxes and jumpjets will be given the worst hardpoints to balance them out.

Of course thats contingent on weapons being balanced. As long as ballistics are superior to everything else then mechs with ballistic hardpoints will be favored. So in order to properly balance mech hardpoints you have to first balance weapons. Thats kindve obvious though.

Additionally if a proper quirk system is implemented it can provide yet another way to differentiate mechs to make every chassis worth using. Mechs can be given positive or even negative quirks to balance out how bad or good their hardpoints are, and other factors like hitboxes, jumpjets, etc... And of course we need some kindve role warfare implementation so a heavy and assault with the similar hardpoints play completely differently (striker vs assault roles).

If games like LoL or Dota can make dozens of heroes play differently then MWO can easily make 30 mechs play differently. It's more design work than anything else because its very easy to code all this into the existing game. PGI's design team just doesnt seem very inspired. They seem content with MWO being a clone of WoT with mechs.

Edited by Khobai, 24 October 2013 - 02:40 PM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

MisterFiveSeven, on 24 October 2013 - 02:11 PM, said:

This will do nothing but eliminate the variety of mechs fielded. There is not enough incentive to use many variants already, and further restricting which ones are good and which ones aren't via additional hard point restrictions is a terrible idea.

PGI makes a lot of silly decisions, but they are spot on on this one.

I dunno this seems more like an assumption though.

There are trends in how mechs get built that can be tracked, but a mech like the AWS-8Q does not fill its role from lore in MWO when other mechs can do it better with better mech profiles, so I think it's at least worth exploring.

[MisterFiveSeven]

Khobai, on 24 October 2013 - 02:21 PM, said:

On the contrary it will increase variety because every mech will have a unique weapon loadout. No longer will mechs have similar or identical loadouts, with the mech having the best hitboxes and jumpjets being the clear winner.

I completely disagree. Bad mechs will not get used, and the good mechs with effective loadout possibilities will be all you see.

Hard point allocation will become more important than JJ's and equally as important as hitboxes instead of being below them both right now. This is from poor weapon balance that is not getting fixed any time soon.

Edit :: except in egregious cases like the orion and the awesome.

Edited by MisterFiveSeven, 24 October 2013 - 02:31 PM.

[Lyoto Machida]

Was replying to Zerberus's post about macros not being needed for chainfiring because of the already built in .5 second delay but I guess his post got deleted.

How exactly do you chainfire LLs in groups of 2s if you're carrying 4 and want to only fire 2 at a time? I'm not talking about guessing when .5 seconds has gone by and firing the other group of 2...how do you set it up in game without macros?

[Psikez]

Signed 3 and yes

[Avalios]

I'm not entirely opposed to ghost heat, but yes they set the limits far too low for weapons that were already well balanced. Specifically the Large laser.

4 should be the ghost heat limit, and many other weapons should have their limits raised as well.

Edited by Avalios, 24 October 2013 - 03:27 PM.

[Paul McKenzie]

Whatever we do can we please not take the game anywhere near where we were prior to these nerfs. A mix of all weapons being used is a million times better than only ppc gauss and ll being used. You shouldn't be building your mech around one type of weapon, period.

[aniviron]

Thomas Dziegielewski, on 24 October 2013 - 09:01 AM, said:

It'd rather see a module that increases the limit for a specific weapon/weapon type.

I do find it 'unrealistic' that medium lasers are the only ones not suffering.

Tell that to my HBK-4P. I can't get it to come out of the hangar, and the laser optics are getting corroded because it won't stop crying.

[Khobai]

Quote

I completely disagree. Bad mechs will not get used, and the good mechs with effective loadout possibilities will be all you see.

You obviously missed the point. The entire purpose is to make every mech equally worthwhile so there are not bad mechs or good mechs.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Khobai, on 24 October 2013 - 06:53 PM, said:

You obviously missed the point. The entire purpose is to make every mech equally worthwhile so there are not bad mechs or good mechs.

exactly that's the variety we want. that the bell curve for good and bad mechs means there's little to nothing at either end and as much in the middle as possible from all movement and weapon/mechtonnage classes available. at the moment it's long range poptart or rough it time, because we're in an capability arms race. every nerf has simply passed the buck.

Fuggles, on 24 October 2013 - 06:59 AM, said:

Thou can still use LLs fine now, I run a 5LL stalker all the time. Ghost heat is needed to keep time to live reasonable. You used to be able to ridge hump and blast ppl with 36-54 point alphas into a single body section, basically slicing parts of Mechs.

Now you have to group them into groups of 2, and fire them overtime wich spreads damage out and is quite honestly a lot less brutal.

Ppc nerfs were needed in addition to ghost heat because quite frankly they were just too good even as a single weapon compared to other lasers. Erppcs were overnerfed but ppcs are just fine atm.

time to live reasonable whilst ac's are rocking smoking and not stopping as you play heat balance warrior? this is balance in your eyes!? how oftern can you score a kill shot when a better crit set of front loading weapons can fire almost 3 times more oftern cause the only thing holding them back is ammo and with CT's as easy to hit as they are the ammo is'nt running out as soon as some would like us to believe it is. GH is just a random number plucked to cover up all the previous game mechanic mistakes and everyone knows it. it took over half a year to rectify the true problem with streaks... what was it again? oh yeah SHOOT ANYWHERE ALWAYS HIT CT. why do you think ecm is a hardcounter that doesn't resemble anything of the BT version? because it was made to give pgi time to fix SSRMs and HSR they're halfway though so hopefully things will change and we can finally have the proper BAP system along with the true gaurdian version of ecm. GH is just the same style bandaid for wrong hitbox scaling, wrong heat threashhold and engine SHS vs DHS bonus mechanics. give it another year and hopefully there will be replacements to do MW more balance justice than the make do and mess up that we have now.

that's why i voted GH shouldn't be on anything and for a limit of 4 LL. hitscan and range already are worse than the duo ac builds appearing on any chassis with 2 Balistics points {so much for customisation and variety} so at least if this happened people might start gaining confidence in energy boats and then we'd have the 3rd weapons group of mech plateforms back.

2LL 2ac5's, 2ppc 2ac5's everywhere

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 25 October 2013 - 12:20 AM.

[Victor Morson]

Paul McKenzie, on 24 October 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

Whatever we do can we please not take the game anywhere near where we were prior to these nerfs. A mix of all weapons being used is a million times better than only ppc gauss and ll being used. You shouldn't be building your mech around one type of weapon, period.

Yeah, Ghost Heat had nothing to do with the drop in PPCs.* Fixing PPCs fixed PPCs.

* Yes it killed the 6 PPC Stalker that was actually bad anyway.

Edited by Victor Morson, 25 October 2013 - 01:42 AM.

[MisterFiveSeven]

Khobai, on 24 October 2013 - 06:53 PM, said:

You obviously missed the point. The entire purpose is to make every mech equally worthwhile so there are not bad mechs or good mechs.

You obviously don't understand what you're talking about. More restrictions on hardpoints further separate mechs from one another. Functionally, yes that is "variety." Guess what?

Some of those mechs are going to be TERRIBLE now, and the variant with the best hardpoints is the ONLY ONE YOU WILL EVER SEE.

How is this not clear to you!?

However, quirks are a good idea

Edited by MisterFiveSeven, 25 October 2013 - 04:27 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Some of those mechs are going to be TERRIBLE now, and the variant with the best hardpoints is the ONLY ONE YOU WILL EVER SEE.

Because if the mechs are properly balanced then no mech will have the best hardpoints and no mech will be terrible. That is the entire purpose of implementing a hardpoint system which can be fine tuned. Under the current system there will always be a best and worst mech because PGI has no way of fine tuning balance for each mech.

Edited by Khobai, 25 October 2013 - 04:34 AM.

[Sandpit]

the solution is much simpler. Don't alpha strike every time you pull the trigger. It's an alpha deterrent not a boating deterrent.

[Galenit]

Thomas Dziegielewski, on 24 October 2013 - 09:01 AM, said:

It'd rather see a module that increases the limit for a specific weapon/weapon type.

I do find it 'unrealistic' that medium lasers are the only ones not suffering.

Hope you put a wiki in the new ui.
Maybe a checkbox, comes checked, that will come with additional infos and a wikilink if you trigger some of the not explained mechanics in the game, like ghostheat or ecm, by adding such items to the mech in the mechlab?

New player buys mech, new player adds 2 ppcs.
New player adds 3. PPC a window opens and says ghostheat is active now if this 3 pccs fired together and gives a clickable link to the buildin wikis ghostheatpage.
If a player wants, he can disable these info-windows in the options.

You need a way to provide all informations to new players in the ui.
And they need a way to find "hidden mechanics" without searching.
You have to point them with the nose on it, in the right moment.

Edited by Galenit, 25 October 2013 - 06:32 AM.

[Satan n stuff]

Khobai, on 25 October 2013 - 04:29 AM, said:

Because if the mechs are properly balanced

You do realize what you're saying right? It's been well over a year now and we're still no closer to properly balanced. We've got several weapons that are useless, several mechs and variants that can't fit any decent build and/or have very unfavorable hitboxes, and the meta has been basically the same thing in one form or another the entire time.

[1Sascha]

Quote

However, the only build style it's really wrecking right now is the beam energy 'mech.

Say what?


I'm afraid to even mention this, cause I can see the ERLLAS/LLAS-nerf up there on the horizon, but:

If it weren't for LLAS/ERLLAS, I wouldn't know what to run my Stalkers with. ERs are the weapon of choice these days for me, since PPCs and especially ER PPCs are just a waste of 7 tons now (IMO). I have ER/LLAS on pretty much every Mech that can carry them and, quite honestly, I'm getting quite bored with it.

I like variety and I wanted to build my Phoenix Mechs differently. But after a lot of tinkering I just always came back to the standard: Put 4 or 5 ERLL/LL on there, fill up with heatsinks. They are just so much more effective than the PPCs. Yes: They have a little less range and do a little less damage but OTOH you can actually dish out damage over a meaningful period of time (some trigger-discipline required). Plus they're way easier to hit with (sloooooow PPC-bolts are a joke) and seem to be more reliable when it comes to hit-registration.

So why the hell should I even bother with ER/PPCs?

I rarely break 1000 pts of damage, but when I do, it's always in one of my ER/LLAS Stalkers.


S.

[Trauglodyte]

- divide the heat bar into thirds with color coding (green, yellow, and red)
- reduce ghost heat by 50%
- when heat reaches the 2nd third (yellow), ghost heat increases by an additional 25%, basic efficiencies are reduced by 100%, and elite efficiencies are reduced by 50% plus sensor range is reduced by 12.5% and module effects (non-consumable) are reduced by 25%
- when heat reaches the final third (red), ghost heat increasess by an additional 50%, basic efficiences are reduced by 200%, and elite efficiencies are reduced by 100% plus sensor range is reduced by 25% and module effects (non-consumables) are reduced by 50%

At that point, everyone has a visual indication of where their heat is and you've got simple and undestandable impact from heat. You can still run any build that you want on any chassis that you want with complete freedom. But, there is a definitive impact from how you play and your failure to stay within design parameters.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 25 October 2013 - 07:12 AM.