Jump sniping is currently the most prominent meta and the major source of lack of diversity in organized 12 man drops. That is not to say there isnt alot of diversity in pugs, even at higher ELO. But once you get into organized 12 mans they are very very recurrent. I personally see this as a major issue since it effects not only the diversity of the game but also the general feel and may lead many to believe they cannot be competitive unless they use those builds.
There are more then a few ways this can be dubbed down abit without overall effecting peoples ability to jump snipe.
Currently any class CAN in fact jump snipe but some weights simply tend to be better at it. Generally Heavy and Assault mechs and some medium mechs. Light mechs can jump snipe as well but its alot larger of an investment for them and they tend to be better with erlarge lasers or as close in disruptors and scouts. Because of this I propose a change to the way jump jets are implimented in mwo as well as an overall change to how jump jets change jumping in general.
Currently 1 jump jet costs very little overall weight and provides an immense amount of mobility for a mech. This needs to be changed and although it isnt perfectly canon im hoping people can step away from that for abit to hear me out.
I feel the weight on jump jets for medium, heavies and assault mechs should be increased by at least one ton. In addition the amount of spade jump jets use up should be doubled as well so they take up 2 slots and not one.
I also feel the jump mechanism should be changed. Currently your {LT-MOB-25} pit shakes quite abit on the way up but does not shake at all on the way down. Also the targeting recticle stays perfectly together on the way down as well without much disorientation. These two things can easily be changed and make quite abit of a change to the system. In addition throwing a 90 ton machine up into the air and then letting it land unguided down heavily onto the ground with very little damage to its legs is a little.... off.... here are just a few of the ways all of these changes can be implimented. (keep in mind im not suggesting them all but rather just offering a few thoughts that have already been suggested on multiple forums in a concise fashion.
First off you can make it so the cockpit continues to shake even on the way down unless the mech has a number of jump jets equiped. My personal thought is add in another jump jet needed per class for the ability to actually jump snipe. As I said before light mechs are already rare to see as jump snipers so I dont see a reason for them to need more, however create a system in wich medium mechs need at least 2, heavy mechs need 3 and assault mechs need 4. Keep in mind again this would only be for the degree the screen shakes on the way down. If you just want the mobility of a jump jet you can continue to use it just for that as you dart about the battle field. But if you want your recticle to stay still on the down drop you need your jump jets to allow you to have a nice easy decent.
Just to show you this would not utterly destroy jump sniping I want to show an example
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...2e6563d1da54202
This mech has 4 tons extra free that it could use to accept the additional weight. It also has slots free to accept the additional size of the jump jets. What this does however is limit the engine size and make it so you have to specialize into this position. It creates a special niche for jump sniping and makes a player really have to work to build around it. This further allows other mech designs to shine in additional ways since they have more weight available to use to perhaps try to counter with.
These changes would not effect mechs at all who are currently using jump jets simply for mobility with the exception of a minor extra ton and extra slot wich most can easily fit in with a little tweaking. It also would not inadvertently effect light mechs at all.
I hope these thoughts will be recieved well.
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3rdworld, on 09 January 2014 - 06:39 AM, said:
