79 replies to this topic

[Almond Brown]

Trauglodyte, on 24 January 2014 - 08:32 AM, said:

Wait! I meant the Thunder LRM instead of the Thunderbolt. What is with all of the Thunder stuff in Battletech? Jeez!

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Thunder_LRM

Pew pew BOOM!

[Khobai]

Quote

By introducing this you allow players to react to the FotM mechs. As you noted, ballistics are everywhere right now. Since this is the current "meta", more people would start taking anti-ballistic armor (let's just pretend it's the reactive armor) over standard armor. This should eventually lead to more people taking energy and PPC to cut through the reactive armor, leading to a change in the meta.

Yep. The long term effect should be a trend towards mixed loadouts because boated loadouts would be shut down by defensive items.

[Almond Brown]

Given the current Ballistic(AC)/Energy(PPC) FOTM mix, using what we have now would be best. Other than Hardened, the other proposed types all have opposing drawbacks and unless you know specifically what the enemy is carrying you could gimp yourself.

[Suko]

Almond Brown, on 24 January 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

Given the current Ballistic(AC)/Energy(PPC) FOTM mix, using what we have now would be best. Other than Hardened, the other proposed types all have opposing drawbacks and unless you know specifically what the enemy is carrying you could gimp yourself.

You're only speaking for yourself. I don't know what elo group you're in, but in my games half the mechs are packing AC or Guass. The only mechs with lasers as primary weapons are mediums and light mechs. In the current state of the game, I would take anti-ballistic armor at the cost of increased energy weapon damage in a heartbeat.

Edited by ShadowVFX, 24 January 2014 - 09:23 AM.

[Ryoken]

Ryoken, on 24 January 2014 - 07:50 AM, said:

To quote Sean Lang: "If it can be abused, it will be abused!". And I agree, overpowered weapons and chassis will always rise in number while underpowered weapons and chassis will fade away. We got a selection pressure and on goes the evolution. The developers job is to avoid the resulting monocultures by adjusting weapons and chassis to be as equal in combat effectivity as possible. Ideally by having to apply ever smaller adjustments as time goes by.

Joseph Mallan, on 24 January 2014 - 07:56 AM, said:

I haven't player the Jager40 in a month? I have been grinding other rides. As Joe I don't own a single OP Meta build and I play this alt the most! There will always be something that someone thinks is OP. Once we are reduced to only Small lasers the Jenner and the Swayback will be OP!

Again this is not about thinking or feeling, this is about numbers. It is not about what weapon or chassis is best, but about the difference in combat effectivity in between all the chassis and weapons beeing as closely balanced as possible to avoid monocultures.

[Joseph Mallan]

Ryoken, on 24 January 2014 - 09:23 AM, said:

Again this is not about thinking or feeling, this is about numbers. It is not about what weapon or chassis is best, but about the difference in combat effectivity in between all the chassis and weapons beeing as closely balanced as possible to avoid monocultures.

You are relating a war game with farming?

Armies use one kind of rifle for its basic infantry. Fighting war is nothing but Monoculture! Variation is reduced to its lowest common denominator to reduce cost and allow for the best ability to train. House Units would have one or two types of Marauder (for instance) depending on the role the Mech was filling. But a Merc Unit... Well that depends on the Marauder owner now wouldn't it.

[wanderer]

Trauglodyte, on 24 January 2014 - 08:50 AM, said:

Hey! I'm an old man too so my memory isn't what it used to be. I'm still immature but that doesn't mean I remember everything.

Btw, Hardened Armor wouldn't really provide us with any real benefit. You get half of the armor per ton but it absorbs twice as much damage. That means that you end up with the same amount of armor that we have right now so, if you think about it, we already have it. The benefit to HA was that it reduced the chance of critical hits. That would have an interesting impact on the game except for the fact that damage is so heavy that criticals don't really matter. Why do I care if I lose a heat sink in a torso when the next alpha is going to rip it off anyway?

Actually, no. It means each point of HA absorbs 2 points of damage- but you get the same armor limits.

A 'Mech with 8 points of standard armor takes 8 point of damage to destroy it. A 'Mech with 8 points of hardened armor takes -16- points of damage to destroy it. If you don't mind the lowered speed and general awkwardness, HA effectively means (for example) a head can be protected with the usual max of 18 points, but will take 36 damage to breech it instead.

[Joseph Mallan]

An Atlas can take 1200+ damage if it has 600+ points of HA.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Lyoto Machida, on 24 January 2014 - 01:49 AM, said:

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.

If you go with an equipment style of mine, how would you deal with ammo requirements, cooldowns, and the problem of mine lasting all game? I suppose it not having a time limit wouldn’t be too bad if they were a piece of equipment. I like the equipment idea better too, but just having a hard time thinking about which type of weapon it would be (Ballistic? Energy? Missile?), ammo / ton (1 or 2?), cool down (if necessary), would be there an arming delay (3 seconds?)? While the consumable Mine might be active for only a certain amount of time,it seems more appropriate as a consumable. Since you won’t have to worry about ammo, and equipment detection.
I’m just trying to realistically weight what would be easiest and most effective without creating weapon/feature creep for the sake of having mines. And also, as a consumable, people might take a little more care when placing mines. I feel like if it’s a piece of equipment, it becomes a fire and forget, and you know how sought after those types of things are, everyone will have one, which puts unnecessary value on the item that detects it. BAP already does enough, Command console wouldn’t make much sense to detect mines.
If there were to be one piece of equipment to detect mines, I’d prefer it to be ECM. Yes, not many mechs carry ECM, but it puts importance back into it. Right now ECM is pretty flimsy… if you have it on scouts, lights can actually go out and serve a purpose as a minesweeper. DDC will be the mech to go upfront again so that other mechs aren’t barreling into a mine field. Mines that are detected by ECM are visible to all team members.

What do you think? I like my thought about ECM detecting mines and giving a new role to scouts as minesweeper. However, mechs that have their ECM countered by BAP or ECM also lose their mine detection bonus.

[LastPaladin]

I like these ideas. Especially the part about trees/foliage needing to be improved to block LOS/weapons fire. Of course, if that change is made, then we need flamers to be able to burn the foliage down

Then, we need a real forest/jungle map, because at the old Battletech centers, that was one of the most fun maps to play. Pop out of the edge of a forest, fire off a few LRM salvos, then run back in and force the enemy to come into the woods to flush you out. Good times.

[Trauglodyte]

wanderer, on 24 January 2014 - 10:56 AM, said:

Actually, no. It means each point of HA absorbs 2 points of damage- but you get the same armor limits.

A 'Mech with 8 points of standard armor takes 8 point of damage to destroy it. A 'Mech with 8 points of hardened armor takes -16- points of damage to destroy it. If you don't mind the lowered speed and general awkwardness, HA effectively means (for example) a head can be protected with the usual max of 18 points, but will take 36 damage to breech it instead.

I get that. But Hardended Armor only provides 8 points of armor per ton vs. the normal 16 (or 32 in MWO). The benefit of HA is kind of like FF in that it saves tonnage by allowing you to spend less weight on armor for the same protection. You lose a little bit of speed and it costs a butt ton (see what I did there? wakka wakka) but you don't get saddled with wasted crits. What I was saying, though, is that you'd then have mechs running around with half of the armor with the same protection but 14 more critical slots to use. That is especially bad for the game cause it would mean more cheese mechs getting, ironically, cheesier. Can you imagine Jenners with HA? So what is they could only move at 130 kph? They'd run cooler and could probably change out a laser for something bigger. The munchiness that would follow is kind of scary to think about.

[Ryoken]

Joseph Mallan, on 24 January 2014 - 09:29 AM, said:

You are relating a war game with farming?
Armies use one kind of rifle for its basic infantry. Fighting war is nothing but Monoculture! Variation is reduced to its lowest common denominator to reduce cost and allow for the best ability to train. House Units would have one or two types of Marauder (for instance) depending on the role the Mech was filling. But a Merc Unit... Well that depends on the Marauder owner now wouldn't it.

No I apply general rules and principals how a given population evolves under certain conditions and the resulting diversification. But nevermind...

[wanderer]

Trauglodyte, on 24 January 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

I get that. But Hardended Armor only provides 8 points of armor per ton vs. the normal 16 (or 32 in MWO). The benefit of HA is kind of like FF in that it saves tonnage by allowing you to spend less weight on armor for the same protection. You lose a little bit of speed and it costs a butt ton (see what I did there? wakka wakka) but you don't get saddled with wasted crits. What I was saying, though, is that you'd then have mechs running around with half of the armor with the same protection but 14 more critical slots to use. That is especially bad for the game cause it would mean more cheese mechs getting, ironically, cheesier. Can you imagine Jenners with HA? So what is they could only move at 130 kph? They'd run cooler and could probably change out a laser for something bigger. The munchiness that would follow is kind of scary to think about.

Actually, no. The benefit of HA is allowing you to effectively double your armor maximum. And as noted, no bulk.

[keith]

go back to MW4 days. nothing pissed u off more then leading a guass or ppc then to just hit a tree. trees don't have to block LOS they just have to be able to take a shot. this will make players start using trees as cover to close space, will let devs be able to use trees as cover on maps.

[cSand]

I thought this was going to be a thread about people swearing in game!

[BlackIronTarkus]

VERY GOOD suggestions, I really hope this come right after they make command console actually do something...

Oh wait that means we will get that... never.

[MoonUnitBeta]

wanderer, on 24 January 2014 - 08:44 AM, said:

At this point, all these armor types will do is add even more variables to an equation that hasn't been solved to begin with. Mind you, I'd have no problems with hardened going in now, along with some of the long-term "prototype" weaponry like the binary laser...but we're still having balance issues with what's already IN the game.

Shouldn't we try to balance those first before figuring out where to jam in more?

Well I am more thinking back to Earlier times, mainly the LRM, ppc, laser, splat cat eras where these weapons were prominently better than any other weapon. While these armor types add more variables, they do add a line of defense pilots can resort to when PGI slips up and things go **** up and we're stuck with that for months on end. Things are relatively calm at the moment, but I just can't wait for Clans to come. I really hope that while PGI is adding all the clan tech, they're adding the majority of these items as well. But I do see what you mean... it's just another thing that if all the armor is added all at once with weapons, it makes it harder to identify any problems, but I am hoping that if there isn't a need for reflective armor, no one will use it. That alone can tell PGI quite a bit as well. But when everyone and their Urban look like disco balls, somethings up with the lasers.
It's just these weapon balances are taking quite a while to squeeze out. I figure it would be nice if players had any ability to react to certain imbalances.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 24 January 2014 - 05:45 PM.

[Lyoto Machida]

keith, on 24 January 2014 - 04:51 PM, said:

go back to MW4 days. nothing pissed u off more then leading a guass or ppc then to just hit a tree. trees don't have to block LOS they just have to be able to take a shot. this will make players start using trees as cover to close space, will let devs be able to use trees as cover on maps.

Only if we can knockdown and burn the trees...

[mekabuser]

MoonUnitBeta, on 23 January 2014 - 09:11 PM, said:

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.

you pretty much summed up why mech combat is so fantastic. I.D.I.C.

[Lightfoot]

Blue Shield would make Ballistics the only weapon used (not available until 3053 btw) in MWO's current nerfy balance. I would rather see all weapon types balanced like they are in Battletech.

The reason Ballistics are overpowered is of course all the oppressive heat nerfs and MWO's junky missiles. It's like the ballistics are the approved weapon type by PGI since they have no drawbacks and just fire at 2x the normal recharge rate. Except the Gauss of course which was transplanted from a first person shooter and designed for Mouse-only gameplay.

Edited by Lightfoot, 24 January 2014 - 09:22 PM.