132 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Training Instructor, on 19 November 2013 - 12:38 PM, said:

Well, in table top I'd just play a 75 ton 5/8/5 clan mech using two large pulse lasers and four medium pulse lasers with a targetting computer and close the distance while taking some pot shots with the large pulse, and ignoring your randomized damage, and then gun out your CT. Oh, lance vs lance or star vs star? I'd run nothing but jump mechs with targeting computers and pulse lasers and kill your entire team every single time unless you had extremely fortunate dice rolls, because my five mechs would just focus fire core out your mechs one at a time. No ammo, no crits. Sure, you might get lucky and take one out with some super lucky engine crit. If I was using pulse lasers and jumpjets though, you didn't stand a chance on any map that wasn't completely open.

Once the 3050 technical readout came out, AC20s weren't very scary in table top unless they got a lucky head shot.

Run a mech in MWO with 4xMedpulse and 2xLpulse and you'll just overheat and die because PGI decided that effective DHS were just too much for their game.

Once again, if the jager can twist both arms to the center, then why the frak can't mechs with fully articulated arms elevate them over rocks and other low obstacles? Logic, there is none.

Though I agree with you, Your 75 ton Mech would be toast on my Table.By the time you got into firing range, you would be hammered by my 3 Gauss and 2 ERPPC. And massing fire would would (depending on your faction) cause you to lose your command for fighting under Dezgra tactics.

[Randalf Yorgen]

Training Instructor, on 19 November 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

Read my post above. Jumping mechs weren't that easy to hit, especially if they jumped into forests, behind hills etc. In tabletop, I killed almost everyone I played against in an open game (with weight limits) simply because I used jump jets to close distance and get behind terrain, and pulse lasers+ targeting computers for called shots when I got in close. Your tactics didn't matter, at that point only your luck with random crits or AC20/Gauss headshots mattered, if you weren't playing the same style I was.

All of my mechs would be missing armor, and occasionally a component, but all of your mechs would be dead. I got some of my army buddies to play, while I was in, but that lasted about four months. They kept trying to follow the spirit of the game, and run balanced mechs and random loadouts, and they always lost to my jumpjets+pulse lasers+targeting computers.

Sort of how no matter how determined some teams of guys with their own personal loadouts try, they're probably not ever going to beat Steel Jaguar in a 12v12.

Come to think of it, a lot of the people that have talked about old school pen and paper battletech probably weren't that good at it. Even then, there were ridiculously superior builds.

Sounds like you never played combined arms, Jumping into wooded hexes, lol my infantry would have swarmed you, satchel charged your legs, scaled your mech and shot your pilot dead. Also about the TT superior builds, if you had a Game Master that was worth anything those kinds of modifications would have cost you half a dropship to have done and you would have been out of your mech for 2 months. Perhaps it is you who never actually played a real game of TT, sounds like all you did, if you did at all, was grab a mech sheet, some dice a map sheet (single) and belch after you ate your pizza.

Some of us played MechWarrior (the RPG Game) with Battletech (the fighting component) but also had pilot stuff to do out side the mech which is why we needed needler pistols, holdout blasters, body armour, moteputers, medipacks. We also had to negotiate for contracts, mamage our money, resupply our mechs and our selves when we were low. Book Passage to a new system. Track the passage of time, run from bountyhunters, defend soft civilian targets that were being used to try and coerce the local government (and just hope to be compensated afterwards) and do all of this either just at the end of the Third Succession War or starting 6 months following Tukayyid. But I Digress.....

If you had played more than just the grab game but a recurring game with the same characters in the same universe that actually let you improve your piloting and gunnery skills you would have found that jumping all over the place, although making you slightly harder to hit didn't offer you the advantage you are claiming here. The same counters in MWO applied to TT. Back to a high feature, legs, 90deg off from where the jumper is so you can Torso twist around and still have him in at least an arm arc. Heaven forbid it was a rifleman and it could flip its arms over and fire into its rear arc or one of the few mechs that came with rear firing weapons (Atlas comes to mind for that one)

One other thing, in the TT world the battletech Universe is damaged, with huge tracts of tech missing (Pre Tukayyid), limited production of anything, hovering on the edge of desperation all soaked in a huge vat of paranoia. This meant people held on to what they had and what they could get parts for, they didn't run around modifying their battlemechs, even if they found Star League Tech, who knew how to fix that stuff. It was the reason why, if you have a good GM, you would have a Centurian with a Hunchback Arm rigged to it, or a Catapult with one missle pod and the arm of a rifleman on the other side. I think this is what is missing in all the arguments between TT and MWO. MWO, Atlases grow out of the ground, Ammo and repair is free and your mech is always 100% at the start of battle. Which is so far from Canon that as many people have said, MWO is Mechwarrior in name only. They use mechs that look like Battlemechs, weapons that sound familiar but that's as far as it goes. Repair and rearm should be through the roof expensive (Shipping costs, Skilled Mechanic, repair bay, TIME NEEDED TO COMPLETE RAPAIRS, Storage Facillity, etc etc) and why there should be, and I hope there is in CW, advanced Salvage. (you recovered 5 tons of LRM ammo, 250 points ar armour, three leg actuators, four arm actuators etc) that will be used to repair your mechs and then you hav the option to sell off or keep what ever is left over. If lone wolves are needed to fill your unit ranks they should get a standard payou plus a bonus that the unit they are assisting can pay to them. If a mech is recovered with minimal damage (headshot) it would be claimed by the holder of the contract but C-Bill compensation would be made. Again I dirgress....

With the state of MWO and direction the DEVs have taken it you can no longer compair Table Top to MWO with any kind of accuracy. The devs messed up at the very begining when they doubled the armour, what they should have done was increase the cycle time of the weapons, small laser fires 3 times in 10 seconds, medium 5 times and large 8 for one point of damage each shot, pulse lasers add one or two to the fire rate, apply heat accordingly. PPCs fire once every 8 seconds, Gause 1 in 10 and AC weapons, small fires fast because small rounds can reload quickly where large take longer as the munitions are much bigger. the firing rate takes care of the heat completely (faster fire = more heat) and allows for cooling down. It also eliminates the sacre of the 10 second fight and places the Light mechs on a more balanced fighting scale with the assaults, meaning lights need to run away when they see an assault, not run in and hop all over it.

TL:DR I know, sorry for the wall of text but you said that your friends tried to follow the spirit of the game and I counter with you not having played the game, you just scrimmaged battles and missed a major componant of the actual game which makes your arguments flawed and hollow. The richness of the TT Game cannot be understood when just playing scrub games.

[Joseph Mallan]

I really need a 'Love It' button for posts like yours Randalf.

[tayhimself]

Joseph Mallan, on 19 November 2013 - 08:44 AM, said:

and players of TT handled the equivalent damage with half as much armor. Our convergence of 40 damage is the same amount of damage I took from One AC20 for 30 years. It's why I am not upset by most convergence. I expected to find better damage distribution cause well... Aiming Duh! But to complain about the power of an AC40... Weak sauce. A 30 point alpha= one Gauss, Thunder Hawk could do that to 3 different locations or all of it(imagine a 90 point Alpha in MW:O) to one if a targeting computer was added to a great gunner. I don' fear AC40s I just respect it like I did TT AC20s.

You make the worst posts in these forums. They are too well informed to be considered trolling, but the lack of logic and understanding of the issues and arguments presented to you is astounding. And you've posted 129483012 times to make matters worse.

[Joseph Mallan]

tayhimself, on 20 November 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

You make the worst posts in these forums. They are too well informed to be considered trolling, but the lack of logic and understanding of the issues and arguments presented to you is astounding. And you've posted 129483012 times to make matters worse.

I understand the "Issue" and the "Arguments", I just soundly disagree with the premise. Convergence is THE issue. I support this 100%, 30+ Alphas are not a problem unless it is pin point. BUT I am perfectly fine with being hit with 30+ point Alphas cause it is equal to the amount of damage I got hit with on TT. A Thunder Hawk has 3 Gauss. It hits me in 3 locations for 15 damage each. Half armor on TT so I was just hit with the same amount of damage as 3 30 point alpha strikes. Better yet, that T Hawk can do that all game long! Could you imagine the tears if we had a Mech that could throw 3 30 point hits into our Mechs every turn. Even in random locations, that level of damage is painful. And as far as I am concerned, perfectly fine!

So remember I am against the way our weapons converge, but not the amount of damage we throw. All my Mechs throw 30+ Alpha strikes. But as I use All three weapon types on my builds (where available) Nobody is complaining when I shoot em for 50+ damage.

My Atlas 53 point Alpha. No whining

But

This Jager is whined about!

75% of the damage my Atlas brings to the party, 65% the mass, XL fragility, shorter range, but put 2 20 point hits on one pixel and it is wrong to use.

Proving that the problem is NOT the power of the Alpha it is merely the fault of the Convergence. I really want people to start complaining about the right problem, Convergence.

[Sandpit]

Joseph Mallan, on 20 November 2013 - 07:28 AM, said:

I understand the "Issue" and the "Arguments", I just soundly disagree with the premise. Convergence is THE issue. I support this 100%, 30+ Alphas are not a problem unless it is pin point. BUT I am perfectly fine with being hit with 30+ point Alphas cause it is equal to the amount of damage I got hit with on TT. A Thunder Hawk has 3 Gauss. It hits me in 3 locations for 15 damage each. Half armor on TT so I was just hit with the same amount of damage as 3 30 point alpha strikes. Better yet, that T Hawk can do that all game long! Could you imagine the tears if we had a Mech that could throw 3 30 point hits into our Mechs every turn. Even in random locations, that level of damage is painful. And as far as I am concerned, perfectly fine!

So remember I am against the way our weapons converge, but not the amount of damage we throw. All my Mechs throw 30+ Alpha strikes. But as I use All three weapon types on my builds (where available) Nobody is complaining when I shoot em for 50+ damage.

My Atlas 53 point Alpha. No whining

But

This Jager is whined about!

75% of the damage my Atlas brings to the party, 65% the mass, XL fragility, shorter range, but put 2 20 point hits on one pixel and it is wrong to use.

Proving that the problem is NOT the power of the Alpha it is merely the fault of the Convergence. I really want people to start complaining about the right problem, Convergence.

I think it's more of "scapegoating". Jags are cheaper and faster for a new player to get into. So you tend to see more of them on the battlefield for new players. I personally have no problem with convergence or alphas but I think that's why you see more complaints about the Jags than Atlases

[Ketzktl]

Just my opinion (and that of my gaming group), but while all clan tech was more powerful than IS, the targetting computer was the one thing that we all considered vastly OP. Especially when coupling it with pulse weapons, it was considered bad form at our tables.

It devalued almost everything else in the game and matches devolved into player A: You take 40 damage to your CT then player B looks back and says Ok, you take 40 damage to your CT. Rinse and repeat.

It simply broke the whole armour system of the game.

[Joseph Mallan]

Ketzktl, on 20 November 2013 - 07:45 AM, said:

Just my opinion (and that of my gaming group), but while all clan tech was more powerful than IS, the targetting computer was the one thing that we all considered vastly OP. Especially when coupling it with pulse weapons, it was considered bad form at our tables.

It devalued almost everything else in the game and matches devolved into player A: You take 40 damage to your CT then player B looks back and says Ok, you take 40 damage to your CT. Rinse and repeat.

It simply broke the whole armour system of the game.

This is why they changed how Targeting Computers work in the latest set of rules I think.

@ Sandpit, That is something to think about.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 20 November 2013 - 07:55 AM.

[Rhaythe]

Joseph Mallan, on 20 November 2013 - 07:28 AM, said:

My Atlas 53 point Alpha. No whining

But

This Jager is whined about!

The problem is made much simplier when you just stop caring about the forums and chat whining and just play what you like to play. All of the AC/40 crying becomes invisible at that point.

[Joseph Mallan]

Rhaythe, on 20 November 2013 - 08:15 AM, said:

The problem is made much simplier when you just stop caring about the forums and chat whining and just play what you like to play. All of the AC/40 crying becomes invisible at that point.

Oh once I am home I don't post here at all, I am either in Game, playing Pokemon Y, or watching TV with my family!

[Bishop Steiner]

Training Instructor, on 14 November 2013 - 12:17 PM, said:

Keep running into these guys, and they're definitely not chainfiring those two AC20s.

It's not the heat that bothers me as much as the pinpoint convergence at pointblank range from mechs that cannot move their arms side to side. Their arms are locked to the torso!

Imagine a man is standing four feet in front of you and you're wearing full body armor. He is holding two .45 caliber hand pistols and holding them perfectly straight, shoulder width apart, at chest level, with a bar attached across the middle preventing him from moving his arms closer together, or twisting his wrists inward. Now, he's going to fire these pistols simultaneously. Would you prefer that they fire at shoulder width apart, or magically point directly into your center?

There needs to be a convergence trade off for missing lower arm actuators when you're missing them in both arms. Quit defying the laws of physics and challenge the PGI coders to actually do something right for once. If you can't fix the AC20 boating with ghost heat, fix it with minimum range convergence. 250 meters would be cool. Given the fact that they've refused to introduce any assaults that can boat autocannons, especially the AC20, and it would appear that they're well aware of the issue, but either powerless to fix it, or not technically competent enough to do so.

250 is silly for a weapon with an optimal range of 270. I could see something in the 100 to 150 range, though. But then, i think convergence needs to rear it's head again, period, as well as situational CoF, so take it for what you will.

tayhimself, on 20 November 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

You make the worst posts in these forums. They are too well informed to be considered trolling, but the lack of logic and understanding of the issues and arguments presented to you is astounding. And you've posted 129483012 times to make matters worse.

actually, his logic makes perfect sense, to anyone who takes the time to think it through.

[Solis Obscuri]

Well, it's not like a whole bunch of us didn't suggest recoil and aim divergence as a balancing mechanism...

[Sandpit]

Solis Obscuri, on 20 November 2013 - 06:00 PM, said:

Well, it's not like a whole bunch of us didn't suggest recoil and aim divergence as a balancing mechanism...

And a bunch of us disagree with that balancing idea