29 replies to this topic

[OneEyed Jack]

FupDup, on 27 November 2013 - 02:55 PM, said:

The thing is, wouldn't it be better to just use a Medium Laser to kill infantry? A 1-second beam duration means a lot of guys are gonna die from just one sweep. MGs would actually be inefficient against infantry because most shots would miss the little guys entirely.

Look at the scale. Infantry would be tiny, and difficult to aim at. MGs and Flamers would create an area effect that would partially negate that. They wouldn't just be standing all shoulder-to shoulder in grand Napoleonic tradition, waiting for you to sweep a laser across them. Even assuming you can hit them, most of the laser would be wasted on ground between individual infantry.

[Lukoi Banacek]

What silly semantic distinctions will the OP come up with next I wonder, because this one certainly is a doozy.

p.s. just because it offends your sensibilities as to what qualifies as MW or BT, don't expect a change to the name. It's live. That would just harm market recognition even further, something this game cannot afford. And really....why is this an issue at all at this point?? Are you under the impression all of us MW/BT nerds are leaving in droves due to the name?

As for the rest....sure, I would love to see elementals, tanks, destructible terrain etc. But at this point, as noted by HB and others...PGI cannot handle that scope right now. How about we just get a somewhat balanced game with a reason to play other than nostalgia for a decades old pulp fiction, tabletop and video game franchise (aka community warfare)? I am very glad the vast majority of threads on these forums don't get looked at (much less addressed) by PGI because this is a complete waste of pixels tbh. I would hate for them derail what timelines they have atm to address such spurious nonsense as the name to satisfy this lone voice in the wilderness, lol.

[Mycrus]

In the older mw games, did combined arms help balance the
Game?

[SniperCon]

In MW2 I never left home without my flamer. Trying to hit an elemental with a laser or autocannon? Fugedaboudit.

[Hellcat420]

Captain Stiffy, on 27 November 2013 - 04:07 PM, said:

It is definitely partly my own perspective; Battletech did have those things but as it was normally played around the tables where I played it we didn't include those things and I think most people didn't. The leagues and/or very rich/hardcore players with tons of minis and hexalite and stuff... yes very much so.

But count on one hand the number of people who have played in a tourney compared to the number of box sets ever sold. That's just my explanation for why I started in on the Battletech/Mechwarrior thing. To me, BT is MW without all the craziness - mech brawling. Craziness is not a good word - perhaps I should say complication.

But regardless of what you call it, with no collision and absolutely no destructable environments they have their work cut out for them balance-wise. I wish they would see that they have tools to help balance that were already designed for their game.

well im sorry but you cant just decide that some things were not in battletech just becasue you never used them. that would be like claiming that there is no heat in battletech because you only used the quick start rules in the newer scrub box sets of battletech.

[Sandpit]

Mycrus, on 27 November 2013 - 04:51 PM, said:

In the older mw games, did combined arms help balance the
Game?

In a word? No
They were nothing more than a quick check off to complete a mission. The only things that were even remotely anything but a nuisance were a few of the tanks and sometimes things like lrm launchers depending on which specific game you were playing.

In TT? Different story. Combined arms could be a pain in the buttocks for mechs at times if you weren't paying attention. But the chance to crit out a tank was MUCH higher and easier than it was for a mech. You could literally render a completely undamaged tank inoperable with one shot from just about any weapon. There were also some severe terrain limitations on tanks.
A single MG could wipe out an entire infantry unit as could flamers. WIth one shot I might add.

Even in the MW and MC series, the tanks and such were afterthoughts for the most part. They were there to give you something to shoot at besides mechs from time to time

[Deathlike]

This stuff only makes sense if there was a Single Player component to this game.

In essence, it's virtually irrelevant at this point in time.

[Tekadept]

Would be great to come across a Von Luckner and a Rommel as a base defense mechanic Forget these useless 2 mg turrents..

Edited by Tekadept, 27 November 2013 - 06:20 PM.

[Greyboots]

Captain Stiffy, on 27 November 2013 - 02:20 PM, said:

Mechwarrior is NOT played on an open field containing only mechs. They also have rules for stability and collision damage, among other things.

I can understand the desire to want to sell mech's but it simply is not going to be possible to balance everything in this environment.

In no particular order;
Elementals, tanks, artillery, planes, mines, entrenched infantry, falling damage, collision damage, piloting skill, gunnery skill...

This could go on and on and on. So long as this game is focused only on selling mechs and not adding in the rest of Mechwarrior it will not in any way be balanced. Certain base concepts present in the weapon designs such as MG's being anti-infantry (and there's a reason why almost every mech has them that can mount them) or faster mechs not being able to just run in silly circles over uneven city terrain are totally being ignored.

Maybe they should have called it "Battletech Online" because it's not "Mechwarrior" in the slightest. Mechwarrior implies the expanded game, Battletech implies the tabletop mini's game and (though they can be played together) this game is NOT "Mechwarrior" it is "Battletech" and they need to adjust or get their priorities right. (TLDR)

And sadly it doesn't even qualify for CityTech.

I think you missed the big one.

The PvP game was Battletech.
Mechwarrior was a role playing game where it was player Vs GM (PvE in the computer world, perhaps even MMORPG).

The ONLY reason this game is named "Mechwarrior" is to capitalize on the Microsoft franshise (and perhaps to do with how the rights were sold). The sooner people understand this and stop holding it up as some sort of holy grail why things don'ty work or why the game should be "like this instead of like that" the better.

I think the main problem here is that MWO simply isn't anything else but itself. It keeps claiming to be "canon" in so many respects but breaks from cannon in other places.

THAT is why MWO is broken.

One of the purest examples;

An AC/5? It's supposed to have a lower DPS than a Large Laser but a range and heat advantage. What's it got in MWO? better DPS, lower heat, superior range, pinpoint damage.

The AC 5 is supposed to LOSE to a large laser IF you let the large laser close on you. You are not supposed to get a long ranged role by taking an AC5 while still remaining "better" at close range. It is supposed to be a tactical tradeoff. ACs were the bridge between LRMs and laser weapons. Less DPS at short ranges but still some, trading off indirect fire for direct fire to get to that situation.

Canon? Not. Even. Close.

It is this misguided mix of canon and non-canon that is causing so many problems in MWO. Not that it's "not Mechwarrior".

Supposedly the areas where they refuse to divert from canon is partly so people can come and build their favourite mechs from battletech/mechwarrior. Well, you can't, because your Large Laser build that was made to combat AC builds can't win at short range anymore. You're at a disadvantage at every range. To think that favourite builds would work here requires a WHOLE different balance than what we have.

Multiple MGs were anti infantry mechs, not killers. They were capable of 1 crit per round just like any other weapon, not a bazillion of them (I picked this oexample because I personally believe this is an example of non-canon which works just fine in MWO).

You can point out literally hundreds of non-cannon examples. Some which work, some which don't.

I think it's time the devs all get around a table and start to discuss all things canon and whether their decision to stick to canon on those things was really such a good idea. I personally think a lot of things would be a little easier for them if they relaxed a bit on those areas.

[Captain Stiffy]

Well when it comes down to cannon vs non-cannon to me after this thread and all the others about that it's obvious that there is some other vision driving this and it's just a BT facepainting. That said I don't think that it's a bad thing or even a thing that they could go without.

It's obvious they used some of the math involved in BT and truthfully what works in TT may not/has no reason to work in practice in an FPS-like scenario.