40 replies to this topic

[Mekwarrior]

Too many games have become sniping + LRM matches only.
It's becoming less mechwarrior and more fixed emplacement warrior.

I would like to see some more medium and short range battles with maneuvering.
This could be achieved by increasing the power of srms, pulse lasers, etc.

And maybe even having space for two AMS systems on more mechs.

Edited by Mekwarrior, 17 January 2014 - 07:10 AM.

[Damocles69]

If you think LRMS are good I can't help you

[Mekwarrior]

I want to see more close range battles with mechs maneuvering around, these days in most matches each team just stands at their end and fires lrms and snipes for most of the game. Unless it is a map where there are no open spaces, then you can't maneuver very well when there is a closer range battle.

Edited by Mekwarrior, 17 January 2014 - 07:33 AM.

[Snowcrow]

Everyone on the forum agrees with you. Pulse lasers and srms are bad. Hopefully pgi will do something about this.

[SirLANsalot]

actually by the OP's thought the thing to do would be to reduce the heat of LPL's and ML and MPL's. That would "increase" the power of short range weapons, by making brawling a little more desirable (less hot). It would take some fine tuning but making short range less hot then long range would encourage people to want to brawl. While those who still like long range (LRM's PPC) would be the "balance" to that.

Long range (LRMS) beat brawlers in open fields/low cover maps. Brawlers beat out Long Range when they get in close, since Brawling dose more damage. Its a Rock, Paper, Scissor system that always takes time to work out a balance for. In the case of MWO there is not just weapons to balance, but also mech chassis, as a weapon can be just fine as is, but a certain chassis might break it.

[Ngamok]

Most maps have avenues to get in close to brawl. But why brawl when you can just take people out at range before they can close on you? When SRMs were popular and people used to take them all the time, long range weapons weren't in such a great place as they are today.

[Mekwarrior]

Yes it's difficult to get close on an open map, but I don't want to see every new map made pokey to compensate (I hate getting stuck on rocks and bumping into buildings because you have to torso twist).


I'd rather see more open maps but also short range weapons doing more damage, so if you do have the skill to get close you can really do some damage.


Imaging the short range mechs as heavy cavalry. They can't do any damage at long or medium range and the long range mechs have lots of chance to destroy them at range but if they do get close they are devastating.

Not If they do get close they can do slightly more damage than long range mechs, only just.

Edited by Mekwarrior, 17 January 2014 - 08:06 AM.

[Peiper]

Two things would help this problem. 1. Sized hardpoints so that the majority of mechs can't take multiple BIG weapons, most of which are long range (boating) and 2. drop weight limits.

[Artgathan]

Why don't we just reduce the recycle time on Pulse Weapons? For instance, putting the LPL at 2.5 second recharge (on par with the AC/10), would boost it's DPS to 3.42 (from 2.75). It's HPS would increase accordingly, to 2.74 (from 2.21). This means that Brawlers could "outshoot" their opponents, but would run extremely hot. Consider that currently the LPL has a recycle time of 3.25 seconds. Coupled with it's 0.6 second burn time, there's effectively a 3.85 second delay between trigger pulls (.15 seconds short of the cooldown for the AC/20, which is 4 seconds).

The current LPL is 140% the weight of the LL, but deals 130% of the damage for 134% of the heat, at 67% of the range. (These numbers are different for each Pulse Laser as well, they are in no way "normalized").

[Mekwarrior]

Yes I really like that idea, because then you could carry less lasers and less tonnage and use the space/tonnage for heat sinks and do more damage through more frequent firing. It could give short range mechs a different dynamic from long range and make it more exciting as well.

Also srms need more warhead power, I expect a greater increase in warhead from not needing the fuel for long range or the guidance systems. 2.5 dmg would be nice.

Edited by Mekwarrior, 17 January 2014 - 08:17 AM.

[Nryrony]

Damocles69, on 17 January 2014 - 07:25 AM, said:

If you think LRMS are good I can't help you

They are both, utterly useless and incredibly powerful at the same time.

It depends on your team, the enemy team and the situation.

However, something needs to be done about ECM and with it we most certainly have to rebalance LRMs as well.

Edited by Nryrony, 17 January 2014 - 08:18 AM.

[Praehotec8]

Artgathan, on 17 January 2014 - 08:09 AM, said:

Why don't we just reduce the recycle time on Pulse Weapons? For instance, putting the LPL at 2.5 second recharge (on par with the AC/10), would boost it's DPS to 3.42 (from 2.75). It's HPS would increase accordingly, to 2.74 (from 2.21). This means that Brawlers could "outshoot" their opponents, but would run extremely hot. Consider that currently the LPL has a recycle time of 3.25 seconds. Coupled with it's 0.6 second burn time, there's effectively a 3.85 second delay between trigger pulls (.15 seconds short of the cooldown for the AC/20, which is 4 seconds).

The current LPL is 140% the weight of the LL, but deals 130% of the damage for 134% of the heat, at 67% of the range. (These numbers are different for each Pulse Laser as well, they are in no way "normalized").

You're missing the biggest problem with pulse lasers, especially the LPL. They run too hot for prolonged engagements, and due to their increased weight, a mech carrying them has less tonnage for heat sinks. Even 18-20 DHS is not sufficient for prolonged LPL firing (and with their weight, carrying that many DHS leaves you with little else on the mech). Shortening the recycle time would only make this worse and would not make pulses better, it would simply make brawlers using them overheat faster.

I use pulse lasers often due to preference and the fact that they are easier to deal full damage with when using a joystick (harder to track an opponent quickly with). As PGI is not going to lower the weight, I feel comfortable in saying that the best change for pulse lasers (in their current iteration) would be to lower their heat to AT LEAST the level of their regular laser counterparts. I would like to see it a little lower due to the fact you have less weight for heat sinks, but I don't think that will ever happen. Other balance changes could be considered also, but I think this is the first step for pulse laser balance.

As for other short-range weapons, well, the SRMs need to do 2.5 damage, and/or we need the artemis-spiral pattern back again. This is regardless of the (much needed) hit detection fixes. The LBX I am not sure what the best answer is for it.

[Artgathan]

Mekwarrior, on 17 January 2014 - 08:12 AM, said:

Yes I really like that idea, because then you could carry less lasers and less tonnage and use the space/tonnage for heat sinks and do more damage through more frequent firing. It could give short range mechs a different dynamic from long range and make it more exciting as well.

Also srms need more warhead power, I expect a greater increase in warhead from not needing the fuel for long range or the guidance systems. 2.5 dmg would be nice.

This is a change that I think we'll have to wait on. At the moment I can't tell if my SRMs are actually underpowered or just not registering.

[Ngamok]

Artgathan, on 17 January 2014 - 08:31 AM, said:

This is a change that I think we'll have to wait on. At the moment I can't tell if my SRMs are actually underpowered or just not registering.

Not registering. When they do damage they do good damage. I've had luck running them recently on my Griffins and Wolverines.

[Bagheera]

SRMs:

Step 1: Resolve hit detection.

Step 2: Use Tennex's proposed flight path.

(It took me forever to find this, too bad I can't quote it, but it is in the archive)

http://mwomercs.com/...__fromsearch__1

Step 3: Tune damage appropriately.

Pulse Lasers:

Their "advantage" from TT has not properly translated, and the minor increase in damage is currently not worth the trade in heat and weight. Not entirely sure how to resolve this, but there are multiple options. Either way they, especially the large pulse, could use a tuning pass.

[MustrumRidcully]

Mekwarrior, on 17 January 2014 - 07:32 AM, said:

I want to see more close range battles with mechs maneuvering around, these days in most matches each team just stands at their end and fires lrms and snipes for most of the game. Unless it is a map where there are no open spaces, then you can't maneuver very well when there is a closer range battle.

I wonder how you could motivate more maneuvering specifically. Would lowering the viability of short range weapons be the only thing needed, or would it need more?

One thing to look at could be rate of fire - if the rate of fire is fast, you can't generally afford to torso twist and run aorund much, because you're not utlizing your firepower. But if it's slow, you might also have a lot of people playing short range ridge humping - would that be better? I am not sure, maybe it would, if you fire less often but deal a lot of damage in that shot, getting into the ideal firing position is very important (including maneuvers to get in your enemies back, splitting up your team so you can attack from the front and the rear...)
If we need slower rate of fire, medium lasers and large lasers might actually already be in a good spot, but pulse lasers might actually be in trouble (more so than now, so to speak.)

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 17 January 2014 - 09:10 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Does anyone know if a Formula was ever revealed, by the TT creators, explaining how the weapons are set up the way they are in BT.

[Mechteric]

Almond Brown, on 17 January 2014 - 11:48 AM, said:

Does anyone know if a Formula was ever revealed, by the TT creators, explaining how the weapons are set up the way they are in BT.

Only problem there is the TT is a random dice based game, so it really doesn't matter because different things are better/worse for completely different reasons from MWO.

[Tombstoner]

Mekwarrior, on 17 January 2014 - 07:56 AM, said:

Imaging the short range mechs as heavy cavalry. They can't do any damage at long or medium range and the long range mechs have lots of chance to destroy them at range but if they do get close they are devastating.

Nice analogy.... since heavy cavalry where basically eliminated via longbow. The long range meta has ruled ever since.
lets see how to balance out real combat for inspiration into MWO issues.

Short range allows inherently inaccurate weapons a chance to function.Not viable in MWO since all DF weapons have the same accuracy. yes even machine guns..... what your thinking of is actually a lack of precision. Basically a short range weapon needs to do a high amount of damage or its kinda worthless or its damage to heat ratio be favorable.

In MWO its a waist of hard points for short range weapons. hard points need to be for long range weapons since the function as well as short range weapons..... why take a srm6 vs a lrm 10. well you save 2 tones but at the experience of 1000m meter range for a 270 max with no minimum. your still subject to ecm. you can direct fire both types. for what your giving up in range id down grade from srm6 to lrm 5 saveing a tone each for armor and maximizing damage to my targets ct.

Short range weapons need a buff to offset the excessive range bonus some weapons got during the TT to PC conversion. shorts got shafted for no good reason.

[MustrumRidcully]

CapperDeluxe, on 17 January 2014 - 12:02 PM, said:

Only problem there is the TT is a random dice based game, so it really doesn't matter because different things are better/worse for completely different reasons from MWO.

I am not so sure. There are similarities and there are a lot of differences, but if you know the original model, you might be able to engineer a new one for the factors that matter in M:WO.

Unfortunately, I don't really believe that such a model existed in the first place. I suspect it might have involved a lot playtesting and trial and error to get in a somewhat reasonable state. And they might never have fully intended to do things "balanced". Sometimes designers (particularly back then) intentionally tried to reward "system mastery", e.g. people figuring out the underpowered stuff from the overpowered stuff, "Mastering the system" and being more effective then inexperienced players. I hope that modern designers try to avoid this concept like hell, but I am not sure.