172 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

Unless you were in a Official event.

Id be pretty irritated if I was playing an official event with a single mech and got killed by a gauss to the head in the first firing phase, lol. I imagine thats why battletech was never taken seriously as a competitive game.

Quote

It happens very rarely.

Its not as rare as you might think. It happens way more often with certain mechs than others because of the position and size of their heads. Battlemasters are notorious for going down to arty strikes.

Edited by Khobai, 30 January 2014 - 12:18 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Khobai, on 30 January 2014 - 12:15 PM, said:

Id be pretty irritated if I was playing an official event and got killed by a gauss to the head in the first firing phase. I imagine thats why battletech was never taken seriously as a competitive game.

Try being the guy who came from Ohio to my Table in Michigan for the first ever Naval Battle... And fail a pilot roll and fly your Corvette of the map cause you failed your Pilot roll! It was his only Warship!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 30 January 2014 - 12:18 PM.

[SpiralFace]

The way I see it, take away its ability to instant cap, and you take it away as a legitimate threat.

Artillery that only targets a single mech is "meah" at best. Its big perk is when you use it against the mech ball.

The Mech ball style of play alone is already a very "boring" / uninteresting way of playing. Keeping it potent makes it to where the ball SHOULD spread out because the threat of instant cap / high damage is considerably higher when the group as a whole is effected.

Reducing its potency and ESPECIALLY its ability to instant cap severly reduces it as a threat in the eyes of the death ballers, so there is no real reason to really do it.

I've been able to get full lances in a single bombardment and not even get a component destroyed result. The instant head caps are far from a guaranteed thing, and the treat of them SHOULD be threatening enough to discorraged the ball "tactic" if you can call it a tactic.

Learn to spread out, and coordinate in strike teams, and not just get into a death ball. Artillary is a direct counter to that style of play, and it should remain threatening enough to where it "discourages" death-balls. Not just be a hindrance to the tactic.

[John MatriX82]

Easy way to reduce headshots?

Reduce shell damage to 30 per shot, increasing at the same time the number of shells from 10 to 13 to roughly output the same overall damage (with more area effect thanks to the extra shells).

For those who go around with 15 points in the head.. oh well, it's your fault then if you get headshotted

[East Indy]

Agreed on the cooldown. Fictionally, each call uses support assets that can only deliver so much in a timeframe.

[Vercinaigh]

Decrease damage to 20, double the number of shells, increase the shell AOE by 50% increase the strike AOE by 50% double the Global Cooldown. Done, the problem with strikes are headshots, being good at attacking single targets and cooldown spam. Fixes all of the above, good day.

[Jman5]

Another idea I forgot to mention was to make the smoke visible in all 3 vision modes. I know people want unique advantages and drawbacks for various vision modes, but I think artillery/airstrike are too much of a game changer to make them invisible in thermal/night vision.

I'll add it to my OP.

[Deathlike]

Jman5, on 30 January 2014 - 12:32 PM, said:

Another idea I forgot to mention was to make the smoke visible in all 3 vision modes. I know people want unique advantages and drawbacks for various vision modes, but I think artillery/airstrike are too much of a game changer to make them invisible in thermal/night vision.

I'll add it to my OP.

Oh yea, I forgot about that. The smoke disappears the same way it does for Thermal on Caustic (yes, it's weird like that) and Night Vision on Mordor.

It's not a good thing to literally "never see it coming".

[Bhael Fire]

Damocles69, on 30 January 2014 - 11:48 AM, said:

Game needs to be about skill not RNG

Exactly. Players need to learn how move their assses when they see the red plume so they can avoid being one-shotted by an arty strike.

[Pyrrho]

Khobai, on 30 January 2014 - 11:53 AM, said:

Dont be an {Dezgra}.

RNG instant death has no place in this game.

Perhaps track the shells as objects and let them hit sections of 'mechs like other weapons do. If your cockpit lines up with an incoming shell, that isn't RNG, it is bad luck.

[WarHippy]

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.

Fun is subjective, and in this case I don't have a problem with random deaths from artillery or airstrikes because for me it adds to the fun, flavor, and strategic options of the game.

[Deathlike]

For a short moment, pretend you're a newbie in this game.

"I'm dead, wtf? How???"

With the death message NOT MAKING A MENTION of dying by arty+airstrike (outside of cockpit destroyed), tell me how that experience translates well for player retention.

Now, we have similar mechanics in other games, like a bazooka, or even the classic AWP in Couterstrike, it can be limited by server or disabled altogether. We don't get such luck here.

I'm not saying everyone who rails against this is a newbie, but you need to be honest with yourself when it comes to the state of the game, relative to the state of the population... is an random instant-death mechanic ideal for trying to keep people playing this game?

I know life is unfair, but this is a game, and making an insta-gib mechanic that isn't skill based, is not going to garner more people to this game.

Edited by Deathlike, 30 January 2014 - 12:54 PM.

[Splitpin]

WarHippy, on 30 January 2014 - 12:44 PM, said:

Fun is subjective, and in this case I don't have a problem with random deaths from artillery or airstrikes because for me it adds to the fun, flavor, and strategic options of the game.

Totally agree. Nerf nerf nerf leads to a very narrow and boring game. I'd love to see some real stats of head shot kills / arty: air strikes fired. From my experience (and I've fired lots), they are very very very rare.

[WKMitchell]

Headshots from arty do need to be toned down. The main thing that I think needs to be added is a Mini Map or some other warning that you are in the area of said strike before it goes off. It is very easy to drop it just behind an enemy mech and have them take the full brunt of it with out seeing the red smoke flare cause it is behind them. To me the Arty and Air strikes should still be blob dispersers(sp) and/or area denial.

[Bhael Fire]

Not only have I never been head-shot by an arty strike, I've yet to be killed at all by one...let alone be damaged more than to the yellow-orange range....and that was because I hadn't noticed the red plume in time. In other words, it was MY fault.

I'm wondering just how bad some players are that they are constantly crying "nerf!" to everything that's even remotely useful.

I'm all for game balance, but some of the things people complain about just freaks me the f@%# out, man.

[Deathlike]

WKMitchell, on 30 January 2014 - 12:59 PM, said:

Headshots from arty do need to be toned down. The main thing that I think needs to be added is a Mini Map or some other warning that you are in the area of said strike before it goes off. It is very easy to drop it just behind an enemy mech and have them take the full brunt of it with out seeing the red smoke flare cause it is behind them. To me the Arty and Air strikes should still be blob dispersers(sp) and/or area denial.

So, you're saying you want Betty to let you know, although by the time you find out, it's too late. Sounds like that JJ fuel message. At least with missiles, you do have an actual window (unless it's streaks).

[RamataKhan]

They are both fine, L2P.

[Pyrrho]

One of my favorite Airstrike kills was on a Battlemaster that had just taken a beating from some focused fire on the caldera top on Caustic. I made the decision to drop the strike on the opposite side of the ridge he was reversing over and then I was able to target him and noticed he had just been stripped of armor on his shoulders and head.

The End Result

[hellcatq]

Something should be done at some point. Not really sure what, but a longer time from the moment the red smoke appears to the time the blast happens would be nice. That or a flat out buff to all assaults take off speeds.

Even my assault carries atleast one of the strike types because I know regardless that I am using a large engine an my stalker goes like 65kph, I see the red smoke or not, it is impossible to completely get out of the blast if it is put directly beside me. Essentially saying that I can not stop or slow down in my assault mech. That really doesn't contribute to fun and seems like a nerf to assaults. It has nothing to do with skill on the part f the assault mech.

Just wait, they are very popular now, but as more an more people are severely dmged by them or even killed the popularity will grow. Soon it will be called arty strike online.

[WarHippy]

Deathlike, on 30 January 2014 - 12:54 PM, said:

For a short moment, pretend you're a newbie in this game.

"I'm dead, wtf? How???"

With the death message NOT MAKING A MENTION of dying by arty+airstrike (outside of cockpit destroyed), tell me how that experience translates well for player retention.

The fix for this is to make sure people have correct information so they know what happened rather than just remove the mechanic. Add kill cams, make artillery strikes more pronounced, or add a more detailed accurate death summary.

Deathlike, on 30 January 2014 - 12:54 PM, said:

Now, we have similar mechanics in other games, like a bazooka, or even the classic AWP in Couterstrike, it can be limited by server or disabled altogether. We don't get such luck here.

The AWP was limited or banned on personally run servers by people that didn't want to deal with it. If you want to make a custom game here(assuming they ever allow that) with your own set of rules for your peace of mind that is fine, but I for one am perfectly fine with having all of the tools available to me and my enemies. This kind of reminds me of all of those games where people would complain that I couldn't beat them if I didn't use *insert random thing* to which my response was if you can't beat me without putting restrictions on me then you can't beat me.

Deathlike, on 30 January 2014 - 12:54 PM, said:

I'm not saying everyone who rails against this is a newbie, but you need to be honest with yourself when it comes to the state of the game, relative to the state of the population... is an random instant-death mechanic ideal for trying to keep people playing this game?

If you are worried about player retention for the game there are a lot more pressing matters to deal with before this should even be considered.

Deathlike, on 30 January 2014 - 12:54 PM, said:

I know life is unfair, but this is a game, and making an insta-gib mechanic that isn't skill based, is not going to garner more people to this game.

I have a hard time thinking of this as a random insta-gib mechanic. This is a targeted attack that people can move away from if they are paying attention, but when they are not it can have consequences. To your earlier statement about the new player getting killed by artillery from a head shot and not knowing what happened is that really any different than a wounded new player walking around a corner and getting killed by any stray attack that they didn't see coming?