120 replies to this topic

[NRP]

I solo PUG about 99.9% of the time, and I have never seen 12 arty strikes in one match. Ever. So people should stop being so melodramatic about it. Sure, there is the occasional player/team who makes timely and excellent use of an arty strike, but the overwhelming majority of the time it's just a waste of 40k C-Bills. If I have time, I even tell them so over global chat.

[Void Angel]

I haven't either. But I've seen 4-6 IDF consumables in a fair number of matches. You don't make up the c-bill cost from them, but that's not the point - the point is their effectiveness at dealing massive amounts of damage at unlimited range, and denying ground to the enemy with little or no risk.

[YueFei]

Void Angel, on 22 December 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

I haven't either. But I've seen 4-6 IDF consumables in a fair number of matches. You don't make up the c-bill cost from them, but that's not the point - the point is their effectiveness at dealing massive amounts of damage at unlimited range, and denying ground to the enemy with little or no risk.

I actually think air and artillery strikes can be key to actually making role warfare work. I would like to see the damage per shell reduced to 20, and dropped over a wider area with more shells.

Air and artillery would then work well against slow Assaults and Heavies. Light mechs would be best able to exploit strong vantage points from which to drop these on the Assaults and Heavies. Suddenly you need a screen of mechs to chase off or kill the Light mechs, or at least prevent those Light mechs from getting eyes on your Assaults and Heavies. Sounds like a job for Medium mechs and fast Heavies, no?

Then there's no need for tonnage restrictions. If you drop in an all-assault team, you're going to get gradually attritioned to death by repeated artillery and air strikes. Assaults and slow Heavies would be able to crush the fast heavies and mediums in a direct fight, but Light mechs spotting for air and artillery would wear down and kill Assaults and slow Heavies... and in turn, Mediums and fast Heavies would be nimble enough to dodge air and artillery strikes, and carry enough firepower to force enemy lights away, or kill them if those lights try to fight them.

[Void Angel]

That's a nice idea, except for one small detail...

That's how it was before they got buffed two patches or so ago. =) Before that, you could use them, but even with the pilot skills they were sub-par. People would literally ignore them. It wasn't that they didn't hit enough of an area - people seriously did not care if they got hit. So PGI buffed them substantially - and they needed it. I simply think the ability to pound the enemy team with that much damage every 10 seconds has a bit too much of an effect on gameplay for a single module slot, even a consumable.

I also see some problems with relying on consumables to balance role warfare, but that's another post.

[Leafia Barrett]

YueFei, on 22 December 2013 - 11:56 PM, said:

I actually think air and artillery strikes can be key to actually making role warfare work. I would like to see the damage per shell reduced to 20, and dropped over a wider area with more shells.

Air and artillery would then work well against slow Assaults and Heavies. Light mechs would be best able to exploit strong vantage points from which to drop these on the Assaults and Heavies. Suddenly you need a screen of mechs to chase off or kill the Light mechs, or at least prevent those Light mechs from getting eyes on your Assaults and Heavies. Sounds like a job for Medium mechs and fast Heavies, no?

Then there's no need for tonnage restrictions. If you drop in an all-assault team, you're going to get gradually attritioned to death by repeated artillery and air strikes. Assaults and slow Heavies would be able to crush the fast heavies and mediums in a direct fight, but Light mechs spotting for air and artillery would wear down and kill Assaults and slow Heavies... and in turn, Mediums and fast Heavies would be nimble enough to dodge air and artillery strikes, and carry enough firepower to force enemy lights away, or kill them if those lights try to fight them.

In terms of this, if they dropped the damage to 20, they'd probably need to almost double the shell count, more if they spread it out over a larger area.

[CarnageINC]

I haven't completely read through this thread so this may have been put out there. First off I'm not against current arty and air, I love it...it adds a new dimension to the battles. They are finally worth taking into battle.

However I do think that to use Arty and Air modules you should have to install the command console to be able to actually use these. It would give the command console a reason to exist and limit number of mechs available to use these consumables. The trade off would be that you can purchase as many consumables as you have module slots. So a mastered DDC is trading space and weight for a command console but now has the ability to use 4 arty/air combinations.

[TheStrider]

An observation: They were RAMPANT for a week or two, now they've cooled off. Don't know if it's the difference between organized premades on holidays or what but...

For almost a week I was seeing a minimum of 2, average of 4 per match. Now it's back down to 0 and 2. Much better.

Either that or my ELO took enough of a beating I'm in the dungeon...

[Demos]

Global cooldown between the Strikes could be longer, otherwise Arty/Air Strike is fine.

Edited by Demos, 23 December 2013 - 08:25 AM.

[DONTOR]

They are hit and miss. I used probably 30 this weekend hit with probably 25 of them, no kills but did some good damage and led to a few easy kills. I charged through one in my comando and it took an arm off, and was actually really fun to get hit by. Didnt do much damage to the rest of my mech though.

[YueFei]

Void Angel, on 23 December 2013 - 05:32 AM, said:

That's a nice idea, except for one small detail...

That's how it was before they got buffed two patches or so ago. =) Before that, you could use them, but even with the pilot skills they were sub-par. People would literally ignore them. It wasn't that they didn't hit enough of an area - people seriously did not care if they got hit. So PGI buffed them substantially - and they needed it. I simply think the ability to pound the enemy team with that much damage every 10 seconds has a bit too much of an effect on gameplay for a single module slot, even a consumable.

I also see some problems with relying on consumables to balance role warfare, but that's another post.

I would like to see Air and Artillery *not* be consumables. They should be on-map assets that can be attacked and defended, but used repeatedly, with an appropriate cooldown.

I would like to see the damage per shell at 20, but increase the number of shells to saturate the area.

And I would recommend a reduction in projectile speeds for PPCs and ACs, so that a Light mech at long range can spot for LRMs and reactively dodge PPC and AC fire. As it is now, it is not humanly possible to react quickly enough to dodge PPC fire, even at max PPC range. It does not require a huge change in velocity, just a tiny bit slower.

Leafia Barrett, on 23 December 2013 - 06:26 AM, said:

In terms of this, if they dropped the damage to 20, they'd probably need to almost double the shell count, more if they spread it out over a larger area.

Yes, I forgot to mention that I want the shell count doubled. So the total damage is the same, just spread over a wider area, and remove the possibility of a one-shot head-shot kill.

Edited by YueFei, 23 December 2013 - 01:27 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Void Angel, on 22 December 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

I haven't either. But I've seen 4-6 IDF consumables in a fair number of matches. You don't make up the c-bill cost from them, but that's not the point - the point is their effectiveness at dealing massive amounts of damage at unlimited range, and denying ground to the enemy with little or no risk.

No, the point is that a few people got killed by them and went UNFAIR UNFAIR SOMETHING KILLED ME, then came here and started crying.

That is the only problem: People whine when things kill them in any other way than an honorable stand-up gunfight. Every single time.

Edited by Victor Morson, 23 December 2013 - 07:33 PM.

[Void Angel]

No, the point is not "people are whining because it's good" - you're going to have to actually support that claim if you want to be taken seriously. Start by dealing with the actual reasoning presented in this thread.

[Void Angel]

YueFei, on 23 December 2013 - 01:26 PM, said:

I would like to see Air and Artillery *not* be consumables. They should be on-map assets that can be attacked and defended, but used repeatedly, with an appropriate cooldown.

I would like to see the damage per shell at 20, but increase the number of shells to saturate the area.

And I would recommend a reduction in projectile speeds for PPCs and ACs, so that a Light mech at long range can spot for LRMs and reactively dodge PPC and AC fire. As it is now, it is not humanly possible to react quickly enough to dodge PPC fire, even at max PPC range. It does not require a huge change in velocity, just a tiny bit slower.

Yes, I forgot to mention that I want the shell count doubled. So the total damage is the same, just spread over a wider area, and remove the possibility of a one-shot head-shot kill.

Hrm, making them a role-oriented non-consumable module is interesting... Still not sure I like it. Let me parse out the idea a bit. You have actual IDF resources, like an airfield and/or firing battery, that you have to detail forces to defend, but can be used repeatedly while owned/undestroyed - and then you'd balance them via cooldown. Then every, say, 20-30 seconds, you'd be able to drop IDF on the enemy with equipped 'mechs. Hrm... I can see the benefits of what you're trying to suggest here, but it would have a few problems:

• You'd have ensure that the matchmaker consistently puts 'mechs of every role onto every team - otherwise, you'd see games where people simply lost the Light Lottery and got plastered over and over by artillery that is designed to be unavoidable.
  
• You'd sometimes punish solo players for playing their Assault/Heavy based on nothing they can help. If their escorts don't feel like playing the right way, the Assault/Heavy pilot's match turns into a slow, grinding hell of unavoidable artillery.
  
• It's literally impossible to advance with slow 'mechs without being spotted visually by determined lights - if those lights are then gifted with unlimited artillery and airstrikes (even governed by a team cooldown,) you can count on getting harassed. Your defensive screen would have to be so far out to stop the lights that they'd stand a good chance of getting jumped and destroyed.
  
• You run a significant risk of making most slow 'mechs obsolete. Consider the Battlemaster. Every build I use on that chassis uses an XL (it's bad not to, their side torsos are so small.) This means that each and every one of them moves over 70kph after speed tweak. The fastest goes almost 84kph. They can't slug it out with an Atlas in the open, mind you - but they don't have to. They can simply avoid the slow 'mechs while pounding them with artillery and stomping any escorts that come their way - all the while avoiding most or all counter-airstrikes. Everyone won't figure this out immediately, but it will only take a few matches of this sort of thing before people just stop playing slow 'mechs that can't jump.
  
• And finally, you'll punish anyone, new players especially, who deviate from the norm in their builds. Want to try a slower Medium (or any chassis, for that matter) with more firepower? The metagame punishes you. If you play a slow 'mech instead of a fast one, or a medium that isn't set up to kill lights, you'll end up having some really bad days.

Overall, I found your suggestion interesting, but I think there would need to be a huge amount of reworking the game in order to make it work like that.

As for PPCs, I think they're pretty balanced as it is. True, you can't actively dodge them - but you shouldn't be able to. If you could see them coming and react in time to get out of the way, they'd be useful only against newbies and the very, very slow. In lights and fast mediums, I can dodge a fair amount of PPC (and most AC) fire simply by never continuing on the same vector for more than a second or so when I'm taking fire. At longer ranges, I actually can dodge them in lights, and even with larger chassis I can make them spread their damage - if I don't dodge outright.

[YueFei]

Void Angel, on 24 December 2013 - 01:00 AM, said:

Hrm, making them a role-oriented non-consumable module is interesting... Still not sure I like it. Let me parse out the idea a bit. You have actual IDF resources, like an airfield and/or firing battery, that you have to detail forces to defend, but can be used repeatedly while owned/undestroyed - and then you'd balance them via cooldown. Then every, say, 20-30 seconds, you'd be able to drop IDF on the enemy with equipped 'mechs. Hrm... I can see the benefits of what you're trying to suggest here, but it would have a few problems:

• You'd have ensure that the matchmaker consistently puts 'mechs of every role onto every team - otherwise, you'd see games where people simply lost the Light Lottery and got plastered over and over by artillery that is designed to be unavoidable.
  
• You'd sometimes punish solo players for playing their Assault/Heavy based on nothing they can help. If their escorts don't feel like playing the right way, the Assault/Heavy pilot's match turns into a slow, grinding hell of unavoidable artillery.
  
• It's literally impossible to advance with slow 'mechs without being spotted visually by determined lights - if those lights are then gifted with unlimited artillery and airstrikes (even governed by a team cooldown,) you can count on getting harassed. Your defensive screen would have to be so far out to stop the lights that they'd stand a good chance of getting jumped and destroyed.
  
• You run a significant risk of making most slow 'mechs obsolete. Consider the Battlemaster. Every build I use on that chassis uses an XL (it's bad not to, their side torsos are so small.) This means that each and every one of them moves over 70kph after speed tweak. The fastest goes almost 84kph. They can't slug it out with an Atlas in the open, mind you - but they don't have to. They can simply avoid the slow 'mechs while pounding them with artillery and stomping any escorts that come their way - all the while avoiding most or all counter-airstrikes. Everyone won't figure this out immediately, but it will only take a few matches of this sort of thing before people just stop playing slow 'mechs that can't jump.
  
• And finally, you'll punish anyone, new players especially, who deviate from the norm in their builds. Want to try a slower Medium (or any chassis, for that matter) with more firepower? The metagame punishes you. If you play a slow 'mech instead of a fast one, or a medium that isn't set up to kill lights, you'll end up having some really bad days.

Overall, I found your suggestion interesting, but I think there would need to be a huge amount of reworking the game in order to make it work like that.


As for PPCs, I think they're pretty balanced as it is. True, you can't actively dodge them - but you shouldn't be able to. If you could see them coming and react in time to get out of the way, they'd be useful only against newbies and the very, very slow. In lights and fast mediums, I can dodge a fair amount of PPC (and most AC) fire simply by never continuing on the same vector for more than a second or so when I'm taking fire. At longer ranges, I actually can dodge them in lights, and even with larger chassis I can make them spread their damage - if I don't dodge outright.

The PUG mech lottery issue is a valid one. But with the current game mechanics that favor heavier teams, sometimes you can lose the PUG mech lottery when your team is in a bunch of lights and mediums, and you are forced to go against a team of Assaults with pilots who are crack shots. I'm hoping that proper incentives for different roles will naturally create a mixture of weight classes in PUGs just from player choice, as well as full 12-mans (as opposed to weight limits).

The concern that an Assault or Heavy might get grinded into paste because his teammates aren't doing their jobs is a good point, but isn't that what teamwork is for? Maybe the rules for air and artillery should be different in PUG matches vs full 12-mans, in the same way that High School football operates with slightly different rules compared to the NFL. Longer cooldowns, and reduced damage per shell for PUG matches? Anyways I do want to see air and artillery strikes made less punishing in all cases, but make it repeatable and reliable. Currently, a single well-placed strike on a group of distracted and bunched-up enemies is absolutely crushing, so my proposed change would make it merely a softening-up, which could be a good or a bad thing, depending.

A defensive screen overextending and getting smashed is a very real risk. But I like the idea of a dynamic tension between extending too far versus not extending far enough. The game of Go is praised for this aspect, and the nuances of this can separate the good from the great.

Regarding slower mechs becoming obsolete: perhaps a more granular risk/reward mechanic for air and artillery strikes could be implemented. Rather than clicking once and having the entire strike coming inbound, have it be a click+hold mechanic, where the shells continue to fall if you hold the spotting. If you only expose yourself for 2 seconds you're only going to drop a couple of shells and hardly do any damage. If you want to drop more shells you'll have to expose yourself longer, opening yourself up to being hit by long range weapons. Each second you hold the reticle on the strike zone, additional shells fall, until the entire strike duration is up and goes on cooldown. In this way, a slower mech does have a response to being marked for a strike: he can shoot back at the spotter.

Slow mediums are already kind of "invalid" in MWO. Adding air and artillery to their list of woes would suck. Perhaps a mechanic could be added to scale the damage based on the target profile presented to the strike. After all, the larger surface area presented to a strike would take more damage: hence a strike will be more damaging to larger targets, and less damaging to smaller targets like Mediums?

I appreciate your well-thought out response, and enjoy this discussion a great deal! Definitely a lot to be refined in this idea.

[Victor Morson]

Void Angel, on 24 December 2013 - 12:02 AM, said:

No, the point is not "people are whining because it's good" - you're going to have to actually support that claim if you want to be taken seriously. Start by dealing with the actual reasoning presented in this thread.

You haven't supported your claim they are OP very well either.

• They are not common in PUGs. Outside of 4-man lances you almost never see the things. Acting like they are spam is balls out lying.
  
• They are moderately powerful, neither being too powerful or not powerful enough. They need to be the exact threat level they are.
  
• They can be avoided with smart positioning largely.
  
• They discourage clusters and static gameplay.
  
• The insta-headshot scenario is extremely, extremely rare and requires weakened head armor or a very lucky crit. it's rare enough to make strikes more dangerous seeming (and thus a better area denial) without showing up more than 1 out of 50 games.
  
• If the cycle times were shortened they could no longer be used as area denial and would be worthless, seriously, drop it people.

Right now they work as both a punishment against tactics that needed a downside, and as a strong discouraging factor to force movement out of an area. That's what they need to do. Buff them and you risk them getting to be a primary weapon, nerf them and you send them to the junk pile. They are good where they are at.

Now quit whining, start paying attention to where you're standing, and don't linger all day in LOS, OK?

[Inflatable Fish]

Victor Morson, on 24 December 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

words

They are good where they are at

this is one of the very few instances when I agreed with you. highfive

Edited by Inflatable Fish, 24 December 2013 - 05:00 AM.

[Bront]

Victor Morson, on 24 December 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

They are not common in PUGs. Outside of 4-man lances you almost never see the things. Acting like they are spam is balls out lying.

Depends. If you play 4 mans, you go up against 4 mans, so you tend to see them a lot. Beyond that, depending on your ELO you might see them a lot in PUGs anyway. I don't know if my ELO is "high" or not (I'm pretty sure it's above average at the very least, but I'm probably not top tier), but I see them even if I decide to PUG for a few matches. It's not the constant stream it is in 12 mans, but it's there.

Victor Morson, on 24 December 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

They are moderately powerful, neither being too powerful or not powerful enough. They need to be the exact threat level they are.

I'd argue that they're currently too powerful. Either they need to do less damage, have a longer cool down, or both. They do enough damage now to critically injure lighter mechs in a single shot, in some cases have no warning (dropped under or on the other side of a barrier from where a mech is), and are powerful enough that they're the best module to take in most cases.

Victor Morson, on 24 December 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

They can be avoided with smart positioning largely.

In some cases, yes, in others, not so much (See the Airstrike from the other side of a wall). Place one behind an assault and he can't do anything about it if he doesn't have jump jets. (And yes, that's a feature, but it does play into balance)

Victor Morson, on 24 December 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

They discourage clusters and static gameplay.

They also discourage tactical formations, encourage players to peek and drop, and reward players who aren't strapped for or and can afford to take them all the time.

Victor Morson, on 24 December 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

The insta-headshot scenario is extremely, extremely rare and requires weakened head armor or a very lucky crit. it's rare enough to make strikes more dangerous seeming (and thus a better area denial) without showing up more than 1 out of 50 games.

True, but I'll take a 1/50 shot to out a mech in a single shot and damage a few others. That said, I think the instant headshot thing is overblown a bit.

Victor Morson, on 24 December 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

If the cycle times were shortened they could no longer be used as area denial and would be worthless

I think you meant lengthened. Regardless, the threat of a strike is as much an area denial as an actual strike, and there are other alternatives to that as well (LRM fire for example should be able to perform a similar function).

As I've said before, in a 12 man, they're required equipment, and if they're required equipment, that means they're more powerful compared to alternative gear by a significant factor (IE, overpowered). I like the fact that they're functional, but they're just a bit too strong.

[NRP]

Funniest thing happened last night. I'm chasing a Raven who who tried to get cute by dropping a artillery strike in front of him so I would get hit by it. Only problem with his plan is I legged him right after he dropped it. I saw the signal smoke and turned away. He died from his own arty strike, LOL!

Outside of the occasional beating delivered by organized premades, this is the type artillery strike behavior I see in PUGs. It's highly entertaining.

[Void Angel]

Victor Morson, on 24 December 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

You haven't supported your claim they are OP very well either.

• They are not common in PUGs. Outside of 4-man lances you almost never see the things. Acting like they are spam is balls out lying.
  
• They are moderately powerful, neither being too powerful or not powerful enough. They need to be the exact threat level they are.
  
• They can be avoided with smart positioning largely.
  
• They discourage clusters and static gameplay.
  
• The insta-headshot scenario is extremely, extremely rare and requires weakened head armor or a very lucky crit. it's rare enough to make strikes more dangerous seeming (and thus a better area denial) without showing up more than 1 out of 50 games.
  
• If the cycle times were shortened they could no longer be used as area denial and would be worthless, seriously, drop it people.

Right now they work as both a punishment against tactics that needed a downside, and as a strong discouraging factor to force movement out of an area. That's what they need to do. Buff them and you risk them getting to be a primary weapon, nerf them and you send them to the junk pile. They are good where they are at.

Now quit whining, start paying attention to where you're standing, and don't linger all day in LOS, OK?

Those are conclusions, many of which are outright false, leavened with still more insults. You have yet to actually provide any substantive reasoning - but you've succeeded in being rude. Especially amusing is your assertion that people who see IDF modules more frequently than you feel they should are "acting like they are spam," because they are "balls out" liars.

I wonder if you will ever learn that trying to bully and intimidate people with insults and angry looks doesn't work very well over the internet, but I won't be around to see if you ever have that epiphany. /ignore

Edited by Void Angel, 24 December 2013 - 09:26 AM.

[ChapeL]

Arty and Air strikes are finally seeing some action. That red smoke tends to break stalmates and move things ( and people) around ... working as intended in my opinion. Bonus points for being much more impressive visually than they used to be.