172 replies to this topic

[Fut]

Deathlike, on 30 January 2014 - 03:51 PM, said:

If there was enough armor shaved from my head due to enemy fire or by personal build, I do not have a problem with that. The idea that perfectly untouched undamaged full head armor can still be one-shot cockpitted by arty/airstrike is just wrong outright.

If your head can take 18pts of damage (plus whatever the internals amount to) before you die, and Arty/Air Strikes can deal that much damage.... There's absolutely no reason why the A/A strikes should not be able to kill a Mech via headstrikes.... Well, no reason besides "Boo-Hoo, I died".



Edit: Grammar.

Edited by Fut, 31 January 2014 - 10:29 AM.

[Holding in your farts]

Fut, on 31 January 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:

If you head can take 18pts of damage (plus whatever the internals amount to) before you die, and Arty/Air Strikes can deal that much damage.... There's absolutely no reason why the A/A strikes should not be able to kill a Mech via headstrikes.... Well, no reason besides "Boo-Hoo, I died".

Aren't all heads regulated to 18 armor regardless of mech size meaning any mech can be head-shotted by one arty shell?

[TygerLily]

Fut, on 31 January 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:

If you head can take 18pts of damage (plus whatever the internals amount to) before you die, and Arty/Air Strikes can deal that much damage.... There's absolutely no reason why the A/A strikes should not be able to kill a Mech via headstrikes.... Well, no reason besides "Boo-Hoo, I died".

Fair enough..."Boo-Hoo I don't want to die that way". Either shoot me in the head or bomb me and shoot me...put the reward of a head shot in the hands of players not chance. I think in the course of this discussion I change my mind and agree that "no chance" is too far...but lets at least drastically lower the chance for arty headshots....

Edited by TygerLily, 31 January 2014 - 09:47 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

TygerLily, on 31 January 2014 - 09:46 AM, said:

Fair enough..."Boo-Hoo I don't want to die that way". Either shoot me in the head or bomb me and shoot me...put the reward of a head shot in the hands of players not chance. I think in the course of this discussion I change my mind and agree that "no chance" is too far...but lets at least drastically lower the chance for arty headshots....

You are still taking a head shot by chance. depending on he skill of the enemy. Area saturation weapons hurt everyone in the area of effect... Be close to your enemy and arty will be less likely to fall on your head!

A banana in the tailpipe, on 31 January 2014 - 09:41 AM, said:

Aren't all heads regulated to 18 armor regardless of mech size meaning any mech can be head-shotted by one arty shell?

Unless you take armor off to put it somewhere more likely to be hit, Yes.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 31 January 2014 - 09:52 AM.

[Deathlike]

People are forgetting that armor only constitutes a maximum of 33 pts of protection against arty (18 external + 15 internal). 40 pts for a direct hit arty to the head > 33 pts of head armor on a mech.

Also, different cockpits INCREASE the probability of a headshot by arty/airstrikes. So, instead of luck, it suddenly becomes misfortune for taking a mech with a larger arty-friendly cockpit.

Edited by Deathlike, 31 January 2014 - 10:20 AM.

[Fut]

A banana in the tailpipe, on 31 January 2014 - 09:41 AM, said:

Aren't all heads regulated to 18 armor regardless of mech size meaning any mech can be head-shotted by one arty shell?

Yep. I believe so.
Sounds fair enough to me.

Deathlike, on 31 January 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

Also, different cockpits INCREASE the probability of a headshot by arty/airstrikes. So, instead of luck, it suddenly becomes misfortune for taking a mech with a larger arty-friendly cockpit.

More like misfortune for not paying attention to the smoke rising from the ground beside you.

Really, if you're running away from the epicenter of an A/A strike, and you happen to get bopped directly in the cockpit and die - consider it the hand of god. Much like a person being struck by lighting... It really sucks when it happens, but the chances are so slim that nobody worries about it.

Seriously, I'd love to see some hard numbers on this issue (if it's even possible). How many people have actually been killed by a cockpit hitting A/A round. I bet it doesn't happen nearly as often as people are trying to make it seem.

[Roughneck45]

Fut, on 31 January 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

Seriously, I'd love to see some hard numbers on this issue (if it's even possible). How many people have actually been killed by a cockpit hitting A/A round. I bet it doesn't happen nearly as often as people are trying to make it seem.

It happens more often than it should. Jenners and Stalkers appear to have the biggest issue with it.

The problem is that a random damage mechanic can kill someone in one shot. One shot kills should be earned with good aim, not putting a smoke plume in their general vicinity.

My bigger issue is that the consumables are all the best modules right now, by a mile. The only reason to not take them is if you are trying to save c-bills, which is not a good balancing mechanic.

[Joseph Mallan]

Deathlike, on 31 January 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

People are forgetting that armor only constitutes a maximum of 33 pts of protection against arty (18 external + 15 internal). 40 pts for a direct hit arty to the head > 33 pts of head armor on a mech.

Also, different cockpits INCREASE the probability of a headshot by arty/airstrikes. So, instead of luck, it suddenly becomes misfortune for taking a mech with a larger arty-friendly cockpit.

So my choice of ride can improve my survival from Arty? Sounds like a tactical choice on my part to me.

Roughneck45, on 31 January 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

It happens more often than it should. Jenners and Stalkers appear to have the biggest issue with it.

The problem is that a random damage mechanic can kill someone in one shot. One shot kills should be earned with good aim, not putting a smoke plume in their general vicinity.

My bigger issue is that the consumables are all the best modules right now, by a mile. The only reason to not take them is if you are trying to save c-bills, which is not a good balancing mechanic.

Jenner and Stalker have their head placed in a bad place for damage raining from above... My Battlemaster also has a poorly placed mellon for air burst weaponry.

[Deathlike]

Joseph Mallan, on 31 January 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

So my choice of ride can improve my survival from Arty? Sounds like a tactical choice on my part to me.

It's not a tactical choice if it favors already powerful meta mechs, and further makes the less preferable mechs less useful.

I'm starting to think people really don't understand the meaning of balance. Personal biases aside, but it requires critical thinking in addition to being objective on the matter, and while I'm not saying I would have the fix for everything, but these things require a lot more serious thought than "I like it" or "I don't like it" and defend the position well instead of "because reasons".

[Corvus Antaka]

Joseph Mallan, on 31 January 2014 - 07:32 AM, said:

I didn't come to this game to be part f a bowling league. I came to battle the Clans and win a war for the Inner Sphere. That is the game I was promised. It is the game I signed up for. Solaris 7 is the games world, where combat is regulated and judged. On the field with the Clans, Sneaky tactics and massed fire power turned the tide. WHen CW comes I do hope it has the Game planet included, so the MechAthletes can play games. This is the game you are here for,

I am here for this:

righto. throw in walls/buildings every 100m as giant shields and jumpsniping included and this picture looks like MWO

[Joseph Mallan]

Deathlike, on 31 January 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

It's not a tactical choice if it favors already powerful meta mechs, and further makes the less preferable mechs less useful.

I'm starting to think people really don't understand the meaning of balance. Personal biases aside, but it requires critical thinking in addition to being objective on the matter, and while I'm not saying I would have the fix for everything, but these things require a lot more serious thought than "I like it" or "I don't like it" and defend the position well instead of "because reasons".

I am sorry but that is still a tactical choice. Taking a poorly guarded flank is a tactical choice an is better than a frontal assault against the main enemy force. Same thing here, If I know my Battlemaster is more prone to decap from Arty or Missiles and I choose to bring it, I have weighed and measured my options and can only blame myself if the inevitable occurs!

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 31 January 2014 - 11:01 AM, said:

righto. throw in walls/buildings every 100m as giant shields and jumpsniping included and this picture looks like MWO

But there is more than a 12 man on each side and nobody is using meta weapons so they are not even in a good Elo so the picture isn't representative of the truly competitive players!

[WarHippy]

Deathlike, on 30 January 2014 - 03:51 PM, said:

If there was enough armor shaved from my head due to enemy fire or by personal build, I do not have a problem with that. The idea that perfectly untouched undamaged full head armor can still be one-shot cockpitted by arty/airstrike is just wrong outright.

Even if we lowered the damage so it couldn't one shot you there would still be the possibility of getting killed when one of the other shells hit you, but for some reason you are ok with that. If artillery can't kill you in one shot with a direct hit why let it kill you at all? When I target a spot for bombardment I want it to be punishing for the people caught in it, and I want for them to be dead. What I do not want is for them to walk out of it as if they just took a stroll through a gentle spring rain, which even with the current damage is more often than not the end result. I tell you what though, I will be willing to make the cockpit immune to artillery damage completely but I want the damage increased to 80 for each shell and for there to be more of them.

Deathlike, on 30 January 2014 - 03:51 PM, said:

I don't want to go through history, but I guess it's an unfortunate opportunity to go back in time when lurmaggeddon happened when the Jagermech was released. Mechs like the Atlas, Catapult, AND the newly released Jager was fully headshotted by LRMS pretty easily like nothing ever before. Now, obviously a lot of changes came from that.. including "removal of splash damage", but more importantly "reduced damage from missile damage to the head". Imagine that... a mechanic that explicity counters that oddball nature of the LRMs at the time to seek your head and destroy it mercilessly despite having full head armor from the beginning. I'm not saying we must nerf arty/airstrikes altogether, but there is a literal balance issue that has to be dealt with, and as much as headshots are simply not the thing you accomplish every day, you do not want to make it easier by punishing every mech that is pro-arty/airstrike cockpit prone. That's just not how game balance should ever be handled.

Getting rid of the splash on LRMs was a good move, changing the angle the missiles came in at was a good move, but I think lowering LRM damage to the cockpit was a poor choice that screams quick bandaid fix instead of actually doing something meaningful. I don't want to see something similar happen to artillery/airstrikes.

Deathlike, on 30 January 2014 - 03:51 PM, said:

It has to be both. For instance, the UAV is a very powerful tool as you know... but the thing about it is that newbies (or missile boaters in general) don't really look for the icon. Same thing tends to occur with TAG or NARC in their current state. Even if you don't have a missile boat, people don't seem to recognize, let alone use that provided intel to push or whatever tactical thing that needs to be done. If anything, I'm almost sure a fair chunk people don't even know what it is or that it even exists. That's a problem. It also doesn't help that tutorials are non-existent for this, but I think I've said that enough times that PGI will only get one more of these done by 2015.

So because some people can't be bothered to look at the minimap or learn what certain equipment does, and because PGI can't be bothered to create proper tutorials that explain mechanics in detail your solution is to just nerf a working mechanic instead of working toward fixing the real problem? Sorry, but I can't agree to that.

[WarHippy]

Deathlike, on 31 January 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

I'm starting to think people really don't understand the meaning of balance. Personal biases aside, but it requires critical thinking in addition to being objective on the matter, and while I'm not saying I would have the fix for everything, but these things require a lot more serious thought than "I like it" or "I don't like it" and defend the position well instead of "because reasons".

I understand the meaning of balance just fine, but I have yet to see a situation that you have described as being unbalanced when it comes to the mechanic for artillery/airstrikes. Now, you have talked about how there are no tutorials, and that PGI has done a poor job with giving the players proper indicators so that they can do what they need to do to survive. I agree that is a problem, but taking away the ability of artillery/airstrikes to headshot doesn't fix those problems it just removes part of a mechanic you don't like. If an imbalance exists it is the balance between the artillery/air strike and the information available to the one on the receiving end of the attack. Lowering the damage or making the cockpit immune to the attack doesn't fix that imbalance instead it just makes both sides trivial.

[LastPaladin]

Sandpit, on 30 January 2014 - 11:51 AM, said:

Why shouldn't an arced incoming shell dropping down from above be allowed to hit a head?

Why shouldn't LRMs pop off heads too? Or why shouldn't streaks just target them as top priority?

[Prezimonto]

Khobai, on 30 January 2014 - 12:07 PM, said:

In TT you controlled lances or companies of mechs. You didnt just control one mech. When you control one mech like in MWO you cant have attacks kill mechs in one hit, or the game just isnt fun.



Its not real life. Its a game. Randomly getting shot in the head isnt fun in real life. So why would it be fun in a game? Games are supposed to be fun, so we leave things that arnt fun out of them.

This sums up my thoughts well. Games are meant to be fun. It's not fun dying to random luck 40k consumable headshot, in fact it's almost as frustrating as 50+ damage PPC strikes to light mech legs.... and they fixed that for the most part (not gracefully but since ghost heat I don't really get one shot in lights anymore).

[Deathlike]

WarHippy, on 31 January 2014 - 11:30 AM, said:

Even if we lowered the damage so it couldn't one shot you there would still be the possibility of getting killed when one of the other shells hit you, but for some reason you are ok with that. If artillery can't kill you in one shot with a direct hit why let it kill you at all? When I target a spot for bombardment I want it to be punishing for the people caught in it, and I want for them to be dead. What I do not want is for them to walk out of it as if they just took a stroll through a gentle spring rain, which even with the current damage is more often than not the end result. I tell you what though, I will be willing to make the cockpit immune to artillery damage completely but I want the damage increased to 80 for each shell and for there to be more of them.
Getting rid of the splash on LRMs was a good move, changing the angle the missiles came in at was a good move, but I think lowering LRM damage to the cockpit was a poor choice that screams quick bandaid fix instead of actually doing something meaningful. I don't want to see something similar happen to artillery/airstrikes.

WTF?

I thought I was pretty clear on how it should work.

100% 33 pt Full Head Armor -> immediately dead by one arty/airstrike = NOT ACCEPTABLE

100% 33 pt Full Head Armor -> 1 Arty/Airstrike + whatever else hits the head (meaning another arty/airstrike, laser, whatever weapon of choice) = ACCEPTABLE

When you put a stupidly high pinpoint alpha hit (4 PPCs for instance) into a target's head - that says more about the high pinpoint alpha than it is for the internal armor level set by the devs. The fact that it is only at least 30 points required as stated in previous arguments, it would mitigate that very problem, but not prevent it if you fail to max the armor to at least 16 points at minimum. That is the proper counter to the problem. It's kinda like people generally complaining about legging... telling them to put more leg armor on the mech.

So, what is the proper and consistent counter to arty/airstrike? Knowing where it is? Once it is planted behind you, I'm not sure how you will find out until it is too late.

Do you not even understand the implications of 80 damage per projectile? There would be hordes more crying and not because of instant-head gibbing. It would just be a casual artifact of the stupid amounts of damage that would be added.

Quote

So because some people can't be bothered to look at the minimap or learn what certain equipment does, and because PGI can't be bothered to create proper tutorials that explain mechanics in detail your solution is to just nerf a working mechanic instead of working toward fixing the real problem? Sorry, but I can't agree to that.

Well, until they add something to address arty deployments (they have yet to do this since its debut), I'm not sure what else I can suggest. When I mean AUDIO CUE, it doesn't mean Betty has to inform you... in MW2, there were plenty of audio cues denoting problems (like a missile launch warning). The fact that the smoke indicator is not sufficient IMO (because most of the time, it is usually a sign of being too late to avoid once you realize its there) is a problem. I would prefer both audio and visual, but if it has to be one or the other, MAKE IT SO. Right now, it's insufficient.

Edited by Deathlike, 31 January 2014 - 12:02 PM.

[Doctor Proctor]

This argument is pointless at this point. The arty users will insist that it's not OP even as they buy their 1300th arty module (and yes, in one of the other threads a user has bought 1300+ of them) and have every single person on their competitive 12 man bring both arty and air strike into the drop. At some point we'll just reach a place where you just pay 500k CBills to get a module that one shots an entire lance at the beginning of the match, so that the CBillionaires can dispense with the space poors once and for all.

[Joseph Mallan]

LastPaladin, on 31 January 2014 - 11:51 AM, said:

Why shouldn't LRMs pop off heads too? Or why shouldn't streaks just target them as top priority?

If enough LRMs hit the head they still should. And Streaks are or should be RNG for damage locations and would/should require a huge amount of bad luck to take off a head.

Deathlike... I wsa hit by arty last week in my Battlemaster, I took damage all over... Are you saying One arty shell is putting all 40 damage on the melon?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 31 January 2014 - 12:06 PM.

[Deathlike]

Doctor Proctor, on 31 January 2014 - 11:56 AM, said:

This argument is pointless at this point. The arty users will insist that it's not OP even as they buy their 1300th arty module (and yes, in one of the other threads a user has bought 1300+ of them) and have every single person on their competitive 12 man bring both arty and air strike into the drop. At some point we'll just reach a place where you just pay 500k CBills to get a module that one shots an entire lance at the beginning of the match, so that the CBillionaires can dispense with the space poors once and for all.

Personally, I buy it because everyone is using it. It's essentially a must-carry for a non-light mech for me, and arguably more effective than Cool Shot. We've arrived at the arms race, so whether or not people realize how powerful they are, they'll continually be used more often. I'm not bothered if it's the occasional things in PUGs, but people with disposable C-Bills... they can have fun bombing the space poor.

[Joseph Mallan]

Death, I don't have Arty so everyone is not carrying them.