79 replies to this topic

[mekabuser]

at OP. I agree with what you are saying but you cant forget the best defense of all. One that every soldier i would imagine has in the forefront of his mind..
Dont get shot.
A fighting retreat to a better position is SO underutilized. A shame because its one of the best tactics there is. Stretches the enemy and opens him up to all kinds of nasties and ambushes etc.

[Lightfoot]

@ Khobai

I don't think MWO players could handle Mines. Interesting, but you can imagine the storm coming to the forums about the team wipes caused by players destroying their own team with badly placed mines. They can't adjust to pinpoint damage so Mines would send them into a frenzy.

[3rdworld]

Modular Armor would be a great help as well.

1 ton & 1 crit for 20 extra points of armor on a location. Could really help mechs with hitbox drawbacks correct it by up armoring the location.

[MoonUnitBeta]

mekabuser, on 23 January 2014 - 08:02 PM, said:

at OP. I agree with what you are saying but you cant forget the best defense of all. One that every soldier i would imagine has in the forefront of his mind..
Dont get shot.
A fighting retreat to a better position is SO underutilized. A shame because its one of the best tactics there is. Stretches the enemy and opens him up to all kinds of nasties and ambushes etc.

This is very true. I've done and I've seen people just walk full throttle ahead and just get dry cleaned for trying to be a hero. It's a very valuable thing to be able to gauge the threat level of any situation and every enemy. You really need to know when to run. I suck at this in mediums, but lights and heavies are my favorite and retreating (if you could call it that, it really is just a thoughtful replacement) cannot be done enough. Knowing where the enemies weakness is and taking advantage of that is a valuable thing.

I think of the enemy as kneading and roll of dough. Keep moving, keep thinning them out. double back, spread out, delay rush, etc, there's a lot of different maneuvers that are available for us to use to control where and how our enemy reacts. It's not 100% black and white, but they all have their purpose and place. It's hard to do that in a PUG though, since everyone is doing their own thing, you kinda have to play smart, and be able to read your teams behavior, and adapt to it. They blob, they fan out, they ridge hump, they do all sorts of things. But there's plenty of things that can be added to make you a more effective team player. Because right now there's certain things that are impossible to do.

Flanking comes in limited forms, scouting is not so easy, spotting is worse. Most lights today are skirmishers. There isn't much to the role warfare outside of shooting your weapons. So maneuverability has it's place, but can only do so much when each match is an arms race. If you aren't blasting away, you're not damaging the team, you're losing the race. Unless it's a tactful maneuver, everything else mostly wasted.

While knowing the enemies weaknesses is valuable (holes in their formation, straying pilots), knowing their strengths is its equal. Defending yourself against predictable events can save you when mobility and firepower cannot. I just hope that PGI is realizing this.

[Khobai]

Quote

I don't think MWO players could handle Mines. Interesting, but you can imagine the storm coming to the forums about the team wipes caused by players destroying their own team with badly placed mines

Mines shouldnt get triggered by friendly mechs anyway. If you have a friendly IFF signal the mines shouldnt detonate when you go near them. Although I suppose you could take collateral damage if they explode next to an enemy and you happen to be nearby.

Quote

Modular Armor would be a great help as well.

1 ton & 1 crit for 20 extra points of armor on a location. Could really help mechs with hitbox drawbacks correct it by up armoring the location.

Modular armor is a good idea but would probably need some restrictions; like mechs with jumpjets cant use modular armor. The last thing the Highlander needs is more survivability. Or maybe even take it a step further and only give modular armor hardpoints to certain mechs like the Atlas.

Edited by Khobai, 23 January 2014 - 09:33 PM.

[NextGame]

This stuff should be added if it is within the ballpark of the timeline, and it is implemented in a sensible way.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

MoonUnitBeta, on 23 January 2014 - 04:57 PM, said:

Unlike you, I refuse to be "comfortably numb" towards the stale game play and weapon balancing. You can weapon balance only so much before things like Ghost Heat start coming into effect. There needs to be more to this game. The "not in timeline sry lulz" is hardly a valid excuse anymore. See my above response to Noth.

edit: I removed some lines. I'm sorry I'm in a grumpy mood... normally I'm not so scoffing... But a more thorough response would be appreciated.

Hey no worries... I've actually been one of the most active [or was] in complaining about the stagnant state of the game.

I've been involved since the second wave of closed beta invites... I've seen the direction the devs have taken with the game, and frankly, it's made me leave more than once. [I keep coming back though, because Robot waifu's.]

My signature, denotes all the major fails of this game. All the broken promises, all the shattered dreams.

The thing to remember, is the devs stuck to a 1:1 timeline, starting in 3049... I think we're in 3051 now... Clans arn't even here yet... we don't have community warfare...

Don't expect PGI to do any better than what we currently have. They'll continue to trickle content, clans will hit in a torrent, but then things will be slow going just like they are now... don't expect any different.

[MustrumRidcully]

Ryokens leap, on 23 January 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

Maybe it's time to double armour values again...

I am not convinced. We don't neccessarily need 100 % longer combat engagements.

And raising armour values is... well, boring. It's just a passive benefit. Most of what the OP points out as "defenses" are choices. You can choose against which type of wepaons you want extra protection, you have to lay mines, you have to seek trees as cover, you have to choose between passive or active depending on the requirements of the situation.

That's interesting.

One of my favorite definitions for game is: "A game is a series of interesting and meaningful decisions." Doubling armor doesn't add anything here, there is no new interesting or meaningful decision to be made here.

Now, maybe one could argue that you can have too many choices, and people get overwhelmed by the wealth of choices and the resulting decisions. But I am not so worried about that.

3rdworld, on 23 January 2014 - 08:58 PM, said:

Modular Armor would be a great help as well.

1 ton & 1 crit for 20 extra points of armor on a location. Could really help mechs with hitbox drawbacks correct it by up armoring the location.

Now, I can already predict what will usually happen - people buff their CT. It's the safest thing to do. That would still be a "boring" choice.

But it can result in an interesting choice - if you know everyone has 20 points more CT armor, kililng someone through the CT is a bit tmore difficult now, if we're lucky, that#s enough to make coring not the most efficient way of defeating the enemy (it's still effective, but it might be better to disable other areas and bring down his firepower).

Maybe even more interesting if you could equip only a limited amount of modular armor, say, 2-3 pieces, so while the CT choice might be ovious, the 2nd or 3rd spot could be used to help mechs hitbox problems and to protect particular valuable sections.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 24 January 2014 - 01:44 AM.

[Lyoto Machida]

MoonUnitBeta, on 23 January 2014 - 04:47 PM, said:

Haha yeah, it would be fun! But it might not be too bad. One thing for sure is that Mines will be a consumable. And that means you will only be able to have one equipped. The less certain, but makes for an interesting conversation, is if Mines will persist through the entire match once dropped, or be on a time limit before they disappear.
My personal preference is for them to have a time limit once dropped. When the time limit expires, they become duds. However the visual effect doesn't disappear, so they still can pose as a threat, it's just after say, 2 minutes, they won't explode if stepped on. Maybe they will if you fire at them though. But I'd like it if they persisted through the match, and expire at some point.
I can understand it would be pretty chinsy if an entire team armed an entire area full of mines, and some poor sod 10 minutes later booking it to their base for the win, barrels through the mine field and, without knowing it, gets butt hole heartburn and explodes into a million pieces. So, I vote yes to a time limit. There HAS TO be some end to the madness, and while you have mines, you still need to take consideration when laying them. The time limit should at least be long enough to perform a successful bait and deal some heavy damage to a mechs leg, but not outrageous so that you can use them care-free and almost be guaranteed that someone is going to set them off.

Edit: In regards to the possibility of multiple mines / consumable, say 3. I might suggest that there be a time limit between laying them, at least 1/3 the amount of the time it takes before the previous mine expires.

What about friendly fire? Only hostile mechs only, or should friendlies set the mines off as well? If friendlies can set them off, I hope PGI makes the UI highlight them clearly on all friendly screens, and put a big red X over top of them so players can see NOT TO STEP THERE. or even a small >> DO NOT STEP << warning underneath the mine when within 250 meters of it.

I don't like the timer idea.

Why not give BAP the ability to sense enemy mines? Or make some sort of mine detection module? I'd rather they keep it to a piece of equipment with tonnage. Hell, make the command console detect mines...at least, that way, it'd have a purpose.

[Flying Judgement]

mines are a good idea they should show up in the hud if one looks at the flor long enough and not madly trying to hunt down a mech. Also deploying them would take 5 sec so its riscky deploy it as a module ?

naahhh instead 1-2 ton \mine
if it tahes 5 damage it explodes. Friendlys can explode too but its marked on the map not on hud.
Sorted if some one careful it knows where they are and make them explode or avoid them.

oh pls conect this with the anty poptart mortar thread, it includes all tipe of mortars includeing smoke screan and flare
it originaly was for a missile hardpoint the thred was asking if it should be ballistic instead.
but more mechs have usless missile hardpoints so i wote for missiles.

Edited by Flying Judgement, 24 January 2014 - 02:21 AM.

[Flying Judgement]

for the buffing armore values idea, i would change it to a shield like thingy. Ocupying all crit slot in an arm and u get a higher armor value in one of the arms and a bigger plate. But no weapons on the arm alowed.

How many tonn ? It depend how much armor u puting on and willing to sacrifice .

[cheapcamper]

This original post is one of the best post I had ever seen in mwo forum recently!

PGI should listen to this guy, He truly got some passion and great ideas for this game

Keep it up mate!

Edited by cheapcamper, 24 January 2014 - 03:42 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Dont forget that each of those armors have an equal and opposite weakness as well as a strength.

Hardened=Loss of top end speed. Double the armor points takes a chunk out of your mobility
Reflective=Brittle and takes extra damage from ballistics
Reactive=Can suffer sympathetic explosion and strip extra armor!
Stealth=+10 heat EVERY Turn! Must have a Guardian ECM!
Blue Shield=6 turn duration(one minute).5 points of structural damage on a crit!

[Ryoken]

Well what I know about Battletech in the last 20 years is, that it is a game about giant heavy armored tanks on legs that battle it out.

It is not a game of flying angel winged giant robots with shields and magic armor. (What you are looking for is called Gundam)

So using trees for cover - ok!
Every mech running around in magic armor - not ok!

The already made suggestion to double, tripple or even quadruple armor values simply is another way of saying that some weapons are making to much damage in to few time and probably in a to targeted way.

Parade example at the moment are the Autocannons who boast, Pinpoint damage up to 20 point, with a very high DPS and do suffer less from the heatpenalty.
Solution1: Let Autocannons fire a short burst of multiple shells per "round"

Because Autocannons often leave enough heat dissipation capacity unused many player accompany them with PPCs, which makes a lot of players think PPCs are still OP. Due to their harsh heatpenaltys this is not entirely true and in fact ER-PPCs somewhat became extinct to my observations! (If someone has relyable data about competetive builds please tell me!) Still the pinpoint character of this weapon could be softened.
Solution 2: Let PPCs do splash damage like 7 dmg in the hit location and 3 dmg split to adjecent not destroyed locations like a particle bubble collapsing on the enemy mechs armor

As is discussed here:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3092938

Edited by Ryoken, 24 January 2014 - 04:55 AM.

[kapusta11]

Anyone who thinks that ACs or PPCs are OP is either blind or stupid. That is all.

[Ryoken]

kapusta11, on 24 January 2014 - 05:01 AM, said:

Anyone who thinks that ACs or PPCs are OP is either blind or stupid. That is all.

Hm and what is anyone who implies that all the competitive teams with their setups and builds are blind and stupid?

[kapusta11]

All your arguments only prove that energy weapons are worthless {Scrap} maybe that is the problem?

[Joseph Mallan]

Ryoken, on 24 January 2014 - 05:07 AM, said:

Hm and what is anyone who implies that all the competitive teams with their setups and builds are blind and stupid?

Well is it actually OP if you have to use multiples of said weapons to get OP effects??? I think Blind & Stupid may be an exaggeration but not by much.

The problem with ACs as I see it is they are all AC20s. With different weight, and Cyclic rates. The people saying make ACs a burst fire weapon, just have to look at the AC2 and AC5 and see their proposal for AC20s in action.

FYI I don't want a 14 ton AC2!

Ryoken, on 24 January 2014 - 04:51 AM, said:

Well what I know about Battletech in the last 20 years is, that it is a game about giant heavy armored tanks on legs that battle it out.

It is not a game of flying angel winged giant robots with shields and magic armor. (What you are looking for is called Gundam)

So using trees for cover - ok!
Every mech running around in magic armor - not ok!

The already made suggestion to double, tripple or even quadruple armor values simply is another way of saying that some weapons are making to much damage in to few time and probably in a to targeted way.

Parade example at the moment are the Autocannons who boast, Pinpoint damage up to 20 point, with a very high DPS and do suffer less from the heatpenalty.
Solution1: Let Autocannons fire a short burst of multiple shells per "round"

Because Autocannons often leave enough heat dissipation capacity unused many player accompany them with PPCs, which makes a lot of players think PPCs are still OP. Due to their harsh heatpenaltys this is not entirely true and in fact ER-PPCs somewhat became extinct to my observations! (If someone has relyable data about competetive builds please tell me!) Still the pinpoint character of this weapon could be softened.
Solution 2: Let PPCs do splash damage like 7 dmg in the hit location and 3 dmg split to adjecent not destroyed locations like a particle bubble collapsing on the enemy mechs armor

As is discussed here:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3092938

However there are rules that will make your Giant robots into Gundums. They were included in the Solaris 7 Mapset! And the 3rd Core rule book.

[Ryoken]

kapusta11, on 24 January 2014 - 05:16 AM, said:

All your arguments only prove that energy weapons are worthless {Scrap} maybe that is the problem?

As PPCs are energy weapons that to my statement are still used in competitive builds your post makes no sense. Also medium lasers are used on many competitive light mech builds because Autocannons and PPCs are to heavy.

FYI the weapons rarely seen in competitive builds and therefore beeing suspicious to underperform are LRM and SRM.

And finally: How would buffing of energy weapons not reduce the allready short time of killing a mech as the OP stated? We are looking for a way to make mechs last longer if I understood the OP correctly!

Joseph Mallan, on 24 January 2014 - 05:22 AM, said:

Well is it actually OP if you have to use multiples of said weapons to get OP effects??? I think Blind & Stupid may be an exaggeration but not by much.

The problem with ACs as I see it is they are all AC20s. With different weight, and Cyclic rates. The people saying make ACs a burst fire weapon, just have to look at the AC2 and AC5 and see their proposal for AC20s in action.

FYI I don't want a 14 ton AC2!

However there are rules that will make your Giant robots into Gundums. They were included in the Solaris 7 Mapset! And the 3rd Core rule book.

You have to admit that currently dual or tripple AC5/UAC5 do get out of hand. Also dual AC20 builds, the equivalent to the extinct PPC boats, still run around. And a dual AC10 build still is pretty fine. Thanx to their high DPS and low heat build up Autocannons push your damage per battle through the roof.

Therefore a way must be found to tone down the Autocannons. And when talking about making Autocannons into a burst firing weapon I have timespans of 0.2 to 1.0 seconds in mind! So as long or shorter than firing a laser endures.

The burst mechanism could help to avoid those pinpoint oneshot kills the dual AC20 builds do cause.

On the dual/tripple (U)AC5 builds the short bursts could reduce the sniping as well as jumpsniping capability.

Also the DPS should be looked at to bring ACs back in line with the other weapons.

Edited by Ryoken, 24 January 2014 - 06:00 AM.

[Ryoken]

Joseph Mallan, on 24 January 2014 - 05:22 AM, said:

However there are rules that will make your Giant robots into Gundums. They were included in the Solaris 7 Mapset! And the 3rd Core rule book.

You are right about that. Still those builds are very rare or costly experimental builds or as you stated arena builds that do not have to withstand long term tear and wear in the field.

So they are by no means the standard seen on the battlefields. This is the reason why not everyone drives to work or travels in formula-1 racecars.