49 replies to this topic

[aniviron]

SpiralFace, on 20 November 2013 - 08:26 PM, said:

That is the issue though,

First off, the arms become the biggest part of the mech, and there for take more proportional damage then core hits do.

Additionally, once you nuke the arm, the "shoulder bits" don't just become parts of the torso, they become a shield that stops 50% of the damage from transferring from the arm locations to the next locations. This means that more then 1/3rd of the current side torso surface area becomes abrasive shields that absorb damage making it more difficult to take out the mech as a whole despite a solid torso hit. Its one thing when they are small "one off" bits like the centrion that only affect hits from the side, but when they are super large portions of your entire body structure, its a bit on the abusive side.

This is only compounded when you see that the 1/3rd of the side torso that is affected by this is also the top `1/3rd of the entire model. This would mean that hits that "come high" like LRM's or shots from elevated terrain have an increased chance of nuking the arms and then having half of their damage just "bounce off" the dead limb.

I'm all for making the Awesome more competitive, but this is on the abusive side. Just as torso's should be fairly equial in coverage, so should the arms be as well. Not dominate the hit box structures in the name of making things able to just abuse the hit transfer system.

I really don't think that'd constitute "abusive," exactly. Even now it's still a fragile mech compared to the Victor, due to the fact that it has a significantly greater surface area. Furthermore, the Victor actually does have its shoulders count as arm; it's just lucky enough that the shoulders protrude from the mech a bit, so they were grouped into the arms instead of torso. What the Awesome has right now is like if the top third of the Victor's arms also counted as side torsi.

Even if the Awesome were to become more durable than a Victor, I still very much doubt you'd see them on the battlefield often. The Victor has more hardpoints, more varied hardpoints, jumpjets, and every single Victor is as fast as the fastest Awesome, which only gets on variant at that speed. What exactly does the Awesome do that the Victor doesn't do better? The same thing can be said for both the Stalker and Battlemaster as well. Given the by-and-large awful hardpoint locations and numbers on the AWS variants along with the lack of JJs and incredibly slow speeds, I think making them at least as tough as the Victor is the least we can do for it.

[Bront]

aniviron, on 21 November 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

Even if the Awesome were to become more durable than a Victor, I still very much doubt you'd see them on the battlefield often. The Victor has more hardpoints, more varied hardpoints, jumpjets, and every single Victor is as fast as the fastest Awesome, which only gets on variant at that speed. What exactly does the Awesome do that the Victor doesn't do better? The same thing can be said for both the Stalker and Battlemaster as well. Given the by-and-large awful hardpoint locations and numbers on the AWS variants along with the lack of JJs and incredibly slow speeds, I think making them at least as tough as the Victor is the least we can do for it.

Balancing energy vs Balistics better would help the Awesome. The Awesome makes a better Missile boat than the Victor as well.

[aniviron]

Bront, on 21 November 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

Balancing energy vs Balistics better would help the Awesome. The Awesome makes a better Missile boat than the Victor as well.

True, there is one variant that does LRMs better than the victor. Unfortunately, the Awesome is still a terrible choice, as people interested in the low end of the assault weight bracket who want LRMs also have Stalkers to choose from; I suppose I should have said, the Victor does almost everything better than the Awesome, but the few things that it doesn't do better, the Stalker and Battlemaster have more than ample coverage on; and again, they both do it without having a super wide body, bad hitboxes, low-hanging hardpoints, and low hardpoint counts and diversity.

[Deathlike]

Here's the funny part. I saw PB/AWS lances on day 1 of the patch release.

Now, it's back to "oooh, there's a PB on the field?????".

[John MatriX82]

Deathlike, on 21 November 2013 - 05:43 PM, said:

Now, it's back to "oooh, there's a PB on the field?????".

I wonder why..

[Black Templar]

speaking of arm shields. many mechs include geometrical bits that look like shields. right now they do nothing but look nice. there has to be a way for PGI to code a perk that grant advantages for the variants that have it (Centurion, Awesome, Thunderbolt,....)

Edited by Black Templar, 22 November 2013 - 04:02 AM.

[aniviron]

Black Templar, on 22 November 2013 - 04:00 AM, said:

speaking of arm shields. many mechs include geometrical bits that look like shields. right now they do nothing but look nice. there has to be a way for PGI to code a perk that grant advantages for the variants that have it (Centurion, Awesome, Thunderbolt,....)

The great irony of all the mechs that have shield armor is that it actually makes the mech less durable, since it increases the amount of mech there is to hit, and a hit to the decorative plates on a Jager's chest or an Awesome's shoulder counts the same as a hit to anywhere else.

[oldradagast]

aniviron, on 21 November 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

I really don't think that'd constitute "abusive," exactly. Even now it's still a fragile mech compared to the Victor, due to the fact that it has a significantly greater surface area. Furthermore, the Victor actually does have its shoulders count as arm; it's just lucky enough that the shoulders protrude from the mech a bit, so they were grouped into the arms instead of torso. What the Awesome has right now is like if the top third of the Victor's arms also counted as side torsi.

Even if the Awesome were to become more durable than a Victor, I still very much doubt you'd see them on the battlefield often. The Victor has more hardpoints, more varied hardpoints, jumpjets, and every single Victor is as fast as the fastest Awesome, which only gets on variant at that speed. What exactly does the Awesome do that the Victor doesn't do better? The same thing can be said for both the Stalker and Battlemaster as well. Given the by-and-large awful hardpoint locations and numbers on the AWS variants along with the lack of JJs and incredibly slow speeds, I think making them at least as tough as the Victor is the least we can do for it.

I agree - the Awesome should be TOUGH since that's it only real thing... though I will say Victor's make lousy LRM boats, which is one thing the Awesome does well. The problem is that's not enough. Any assault mech that can't use ballistics (the best weapons in the game) is at a disadvantage. The Stalker gets around this thanks to having: good hitboxes, staggering hardpoints, and high-mounted hard points that allow for sniping. All the Awesome has is better mobility... which just won't cut it.

aniviron, on 22 November 2013 - 07:01 AM, said:

The great irony of all the mechs that have shield armor is that it actually makes the mech less durable, since it increases the amount of mech there is to hit, and a hit to the decorative plates on a Jager's chest or an Awesome's shoulder counts the same as a hit to anywhere else.

Hmm... maybe they should count as something like missile bay doors and grant damage reduction. So, if a mech has a shield feature on a body location, damage dealt to that area would be reduced (or maybe reduced crit chances or something) - we don't want to add more hitboxes, but this could work...

Edited by oldradagast, 22 November 2013 - 09:24 AM.

[M4NTiC0R3X]

My catapult a-1 and awesome 9-m would like a word with pgi

[YueFei]

gaSyeraSS, on 20 November 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

There arent only hills that can be used as coverage before/after firing, ever tried to walk behind a cover like a building, twist torso towards enemy, shoot a side-mounted weapon and twist back sideways with a stalker? guess no, cause there is nothin to twist. your stalkers ct/st can always be hit from almost any direction. most of you guys only think of walking up hills as a matter of coverage. but the fact is, there are two different types of coverage that can be used, vertical and horizontal. Perfect example for this is a arm/sidetorso mounted weapons on one side... like on Highlander OR the awesome (1x PPC Arm. 2xPPC Sidetorso)

The Stalker can use horiztonal cover as well, so that point is a wash. And your cockpit must go past the cover to shoot, because otherwise your reticle lands on the building in front of your face and even your exposed arm weapons will shoot into the side of the building. You're going to expose half of your mech at the very least, which includes your CT. The Stalker can shield its CT better than the Awesome can because most of the Stalker is ST hitbox. You may be confusing the Stalker with the Catapult's hitboxes.

Plus, the other 80-ton mech, the Victor, can jump-skate out of horizontal cover, shoot, and be immediately moving back into cover. The Awesome, lacking jump jets, can't do that trick, and its lousy deceleration makes it take awhile to stop yourself out of cover and reverse back into cover. Some Awesome pilots have said it's better to have another building you plan to run past and behind, rather than trying to hit the awful brakes and reverse back into the building you were at.