1726 replies to this topic

[Ratpoison]

zagibu, on 28 January 2015 - 01:57 PM, said:

Crazy talk. The troll door is that way ->

There's that bitterness I mentioned, as expected.

[occusoj]

Feed him more, it keeps the thread up.

[zagibu]

tortuousGoddess, on 28 January 2015 - 02:43 PM, said:

There's that bitterness I mentioned, as expected.

I don't really like CPLTs, their CTs are too big of a target. But I don't like inconsistent things, such as ravens being able to mount LRM20s in a box that is 1/10th of the CPLTs box.

[MATRAKA14]

tortuousGoddess, on 28 January 2015 - 12:13 PM, said:

PGI's response to this back when it happened compared the complaining to telling an artist to use a different shade of paint than what they chose to use. Honestly, I don't think they're that far off in saying that. At the end of the day, battlemechs designed for this game are PGI's vision of the Battletech universe and ALL of the mechs look quite different from their original artwork, in a more modernized and realistic style that looks quite good on the whole. The bigger ears made the change a nerf to the A1's durability which is why I didn't entirely care for it, but it helps split missile type builds and it really doesn't look that different or unrealistic. The A1 is still my favorite heavy and I still do quite well in it. It seems like this thread is being kept alive by the same dozen or so bitter people posting over and over.

First of all, all opinions are welcomed.

Now, take a look to the thread, the first post has 88 likes, my picture of suggested solution has 23 likes. Less people replies just because the thread has more than a year, also there is no much more to say about it.

The catapult was originally designed without extensions and with smaller missile launchers, the bigger launchers and the extensions were made when the mechs needed a way of spotting enemy weapons. this solution hardly accomplishes what it tries and harms the original design.




There is not a single version of the catapult in any mechwarrior game (even spin offs) with those extra launchers.

Also they are not realistic, show me a picture of a missile truck with that kind of added launchers outside a missile box. anyways the realistic factor is not important in a giant mech game.

The catapult arms are extremely easy to take apart, the original launcher can help a lot with that, but even with that there are straight better mechs, the mad cat is faster has more armour and firepower. the old launcher is still the biggest lrm launcher in the game.


Now look at those two pictures, and tell me with an open mind, wich one looks better for you.

Edited by MATRAKA14, 28 January 2015 - 03:32 PM.

[Dauphni]

Wow, I'd never seen that river city pic before, that actually looks quite beautiful without the disgusting muddy brown!

Also, the Catapult is nice...

[Colonel Fubar]

Round and Round the nerfing goes from one patch to next...and where she stops no one knows.

[Ratpoison]

MATRAKA14, on 28 January 2015 - 03:31 PM, said:

-snip-

Thank you for the legitimate response. Though I've been following this topic and I've seen all of the suggested solutions that have come through this thread, I don't feel that any of them are necessarily better than the geometry update that this topic is about. Many of them seem unworkable from a technical standpoint with the way hardpoints function in MWO's mechbay, where each hardpoint has a represented space on the mech that alters to reflect the weapon in its place. Cramming all of those represented weapons in the box is not nearly as simple as some of these solutions suggest it should be. With the ability to mix and match missiles as you please, trying to make the mechbay understand how it should represent ALL possible awkward combinations would be a nightmare. The squished launchers done in the style of the Timberwolf's launchers strike me as even more awkward and un-Catapult like than the current pod attachments. I will say I was disappointed that they decided to standardize the Catapults with the C4's launchers instead of the C1's, but honestly it is a small difference.

The pods have never been done before, but they were added as a unique solution to a unique problem. Catapults as per lore were never designed to carry more than two launchers total; the fact that the C4 and A1 can carry more goes against that, but it was necessary to make them usable and interesting in this game. To make it friendly with the game's mechbay, the first hardpoint was put inside the box, the second was attached to the sides, and the third was placed underneath. All things considered, it doesn't seem like a bad choice.

I've seen those comparison photos before in this thread and they are still wildly unfair, as the first was IIRC taken from official artwork and the second is made specifically to look dorky with clashing, gaudy colors and an unusable 6 LRM10 loadout. For a more fair comparison, I've taken a screenshot of my A1:



I still really like the way it looks. Don't forget that the A1 used to have fake laser mounts on it like the comparison picture shows, I was certainly glad to see those gone. From a usability standpoint, the update was a great help to builds like mine, allowing me to put the LRM15s in the boxes, and the 4 backup SSRM2s outside of it in pods that don't require me to open my missile doors. I can't say I would enjoy having those shoved back into the boxes.

Edited by tortuousGoddess, 28 January 2015 - 05:19 PM.

[DjPush]

Can we get some speakers on the outside so it looks like a giant walking boom box?

[MeiSooHaityu]

Little known fact.

When you equip the VCRs on a Catapult A1, you can pop in a cassette of Robot Jox and it will wirelessly transmit and play on all nearby Shadow Hawk cockpit glass.

True story.

[MATRAKA14]

tortuousGoddess, on 28 January 2015 - 05:05 PM, said:

My fix 1 (the easy one) works exactly like the king crab claws.
My fix 2 is really similar to how the raven 3l arm launcher works.

The two solutions are perfectly viable technically, and improve the aesthetics, and the balance (gameplay) of the mech while respecting the original art, and the essence of the mech.

Yhea the multiple launchers on the mad cat looks awkward, and in my opinion the original catapult is far better designed. The bad thing, catapult launchers make the arms extremely easy to tear apart, and bigger than some assaults like the stalker, so yes the old lrm 15 size launchers make a huge difference statically and in gameplay.





The catapult mechlab treatment is not an unique problem, and that "unique solution" feels like a cheap effortless solution, and extremely harms the original design. also its near to impossible to guess what weapons a cat has with a quik look, so the change is unable to fix the original situation.

There are more comparations, and no, they are fear, because it was the way the same loadout looked back then, the first is a conventional catapult-c1 (founder) playable in the game. the colours of the pictures dont mater at all with the topic.

(A lot more of this in page 53)

tortuousGoddess, on 28 January 2015 - 05:05 PM, said:

I will say I was disappointed that they decided to standardize the Catapults with the C4's launchers instead of the C1's
I can't say I would enjoy having those shoved back into the boxes.

If you think that way, why other players can't complain and ask for a fix? in my opinion its legit, some people bought those mechs with the old look and real money they have the right to complain.

Edited by MATRAKA14, 29 January 2015 - 07:23 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Exactly.

Not to mention there is always value in pushing for an improvement.

A lot of the changes to the Catapult are outdated and need to be retro-activated back.

The A1 arms were clearly a nerf to streak/splat Cats. Now we have Doom Crows and Doom Dogs??? Things like the torso twist were a nerf due to the dual big ballistic builds, but now we have Boom Jagger's and dual Gauss Cataphracts.

Times have changed and power creep has made these nerfs unnecessary. Let's have our old Catapults back.

[RedlineHunter]

All this time and still nothing from PGI. <Facepalm>

We really want to know where you stand on this.

[MATRAKA14]

News from the front

The lead artist 'Dennis' has seen the "lets fix the cats" picture. I have no idea if he agrees or likes/dislikes the idea.

[MeiSooHaityu]

MATRAKA14, on 09 February 2015 - 05:43 AM, said:

News from the front

The lead artist 'Dennis' has seen the &quot;lets fix the cats&quot; picture. I have no idea if he agrees or likes/dislikes the idea.

I'm glad it has gotten some attention. PGI just needs to sign off on the improvements.

Problem is, where do they find the time (especially with new content always in development :/ ). I hope they address it though.

[MATRAKA14]

This post has got an official answer.

http://mwomercs.com/...n-recent-mechs/

I'm really glad for them, the thread has a good point, they have achieved a complete official answer about the thread.

I'm thinking about what diferences have the 2 threads,

The animation one has 74 replies and 5694, and only 4 pages, thats a really small thread compared to this one, what are we doing wrong? maybe its because the animation one affects to newer mechs or clan mechs? maybe they really think the catapult its ok as it is? i'm really intrigued about all this, seriusly.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Could be the animations affected newer mech so it got more attention... Or PGI hates the Catapult :/

[Ratpoison]

Tooooonpie, on 12 November 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

Kinda bad news guys....

*cough*

[Navid A1]

MATRAKA14, on 09 January 2015 - 04:08 PM, said:

What about scaling launchers:


Srm2/6 lrm5


Srm6 / lrm10 / multiple srms or lrm5s


Lrm 15 / 3 lrm5s / 3 srm6s


Lrm 20 / 2 lrm10s

While this looks very very nice... Pgi may not be able to do it because of bay door animation mechanics

[MeiSooHaityu]

Well I hope PGI gives the A1 some love in this next quirk pass. If the ears have to be that big, how about a structure increase by about 300%. That should help a bit :/

[XphR]

tortuousGoddess, on 09 February 2015 - 07:20 PM, said:

*cough*

Only instead of blue paint the artist used feces.