1026 replies to this topic

[Josef Koba]

We're so starved for information that a lot of people in this thread are happy to get even a vague statement from the designer? That doesn't bode well. Personally, I'd rather not having any info if this is the sort we're given. It's not vague; it's cryptic at best. It did little other than stir up the hornet's nest, and that doesn't sound like a good strategy to me though, in fairness, I'm not a game designer. We've been admonished at least four times by mods in this thread to keep it on topic. I'm not even sure what the topic is. Is it the Highlander? Jump jets? Nerf guns? Boards with mechs on them? Beats me. That's what vague/cryptic information does. It makes it hard for people to stay on topic.

That said, there's been some great feedback from the community in here regarding jump jets and I'm hoping that they are what will be looked at. And I'm hoping that the designers will take into consideration the information in this thread, much of which is very technically sound and somewhat innovative in its approach. (But considering the topic was vague, it's hard to even want ot separate the wheat from the chaff in this thread...) Jump snipers don't particularly scare me though they can be effective. I've never been able to use them. If I use JJs at all it's for mobility.

One other thing: A lot of people have stated that other assaults aren't viable because of the effectiveness of the Highlanders and Victors. I disagree. They may be effective, but I've found the Battlemasters, Stalkers, and Atlases to be very effective in their own right. My K/D ratio in all three chassis is over 2.00 by a significant margin. I only own one Highlander and I'm not really a fan. I'd like a Victor someday but it's not a priority. For the most part, each chassis has its own character, meaning that it has its own niche. If you play into that niche, they do just fine, in my humble opinion. I don't need to see the nerf gun brought out to shoot at the Highlander to make the assaults I pilot better comparatively.

[Ellen Ripley]

I really wanna know what it is with you guys and SRMs.

Everytime they are broken or in dire need of a buff you let the community rage about it for month and month (3,5 last time if memory serves right) before finally acknowledging that there might be a problem with them at all and then another century passes and another glacier melts away from the face of the earth before you actually adress the problem.

SRMs are one of the main brawling weapons in this game and them being broken or seriously underpowered greatly & directly impairs brawling.

Therefore a good deal of the current balance problems -aka. the comparatively weak state of brawling- can also be traced back directly to this extremely annoying neglect of yours.

By doing this you are cultivating monotony and frustration in your game and amongst your playerbase.
Statements like Russ's twitter that the current state of SRMs will have to do until CW hits* (which might take forever for all we know), are nothing but a slap in the face of everyone who wants some form of coexistence of viable playstyles in MW-O.


tl;dr:
FIx SRMs before even thinking about touching anything else for balance reasons. Make it your top balance/gameplay priority for now.




*source: https://twitter.com/...818308174319617

Edited by Ellen Ripley, 06 February 2014 - 05:37 AM.

[Rotta]

I have not been playing too much lately. Waiting for CW, and hoping it to activate me again. Still played couple games the last month. I might be wrong but the ideas I got from the games...

Alpha to one location is more or less everything in the game at the moment.

Gaus is ok, to be honest it is one of the easiest weapons to use, imho.

AC20, Probably was ok to nerf, but I think that the nerf was too hard. It is just so slow, that at close range, you fire at jenner and it turns 90 degrees and run away before getting a hit.
From a bit further, highlander can walk from behind a corner, you fire, and then the highlander reverses back behind the corner before getting a hit. I have to say that you over nerfed it.

JJ sniping might end if you make brawling to be competitive. Buff those SRM's, make all short range weapons to shine a bit more. Getting to close range is often very deadly, I think you should definitely be rewarded from that.

Close range weapons do have faster cycle, you cannot torso twist so well. You lose the ability to cover your central torso between the shots. You have to fire more often, and the alpha is not so high -> So the damage is harder to get to a specific location.

SRM is spreading, not hitting one location. You could get really nice dmg values, but often the kill is about getting that dmg to CT and not around it.

If you really want to nerf JJ, I think you can leave a small shake until landed. It does not even have to be visible, but it could be there. Just enough to make JJ sniping weaker for long ranges. So that for long range targets you might hit to RT, CT and LT with different weapons. This way standing sniper mech will get a clear benefit, firmly standing on the ground will get you the best accuracy.
But do not make the shake to be too big, else skill really does not matter at all and that would not be nice.

[Mechteric]

I really think the problem isn't the Highlanders, its gotta be in the weapons. Brawling right now is suffering and therefore you see more ranged combat. If SRMs were at least somewhat near as good as as they were when splatcats and Cent 9As ruled the land months ago you'd have a better idea of what really needs the nerfs.

As far as jump jets go, please take a good look at jump jets in Mechwarrior Living Legends. Jump sniping was just not used that much because the jets, while boosting you faster, also meant you were in the air more since you didn't have fine floaty control over the jets like you do in MWO (which MWLL also once had before they did this).

[Joe Decker]

I agree that the whole Jumpjet Mechanic needs to be overworked.

1. Jump Height per JJ in Relation to the Mechs Tonnage is important. One JJ should lift up a 30 Tons Mech more than it lifts a 90 Tons Mech. It should not be possible to lift a 90 Ton Mech with a single JJ to that Height. Just put the Number of JJ's and the Weight of each Mechtype in a correct Relation to each other.

2. You got Cockpit shaking while Jumpjet Mechs use their JJ's. That is okey. The missing Step now is to add adequate falling Damage to Mechs that are falling without slowing down the Fall with their JJ. The heavier the Mech is that is falling, the higher the falling Damage has to be. That Way Poptarts need their Jump Jets also to reduce falling Damage that will be added to their Legs.

If those two Points will be worked on, Poptarting will not be that OP anymore.

Edited by Joe Decker, 06 February 2014 - 05:48 AM.

[FullMetalJackass]

Sandpit, on 05 February 2014 - 05:17 PM, said:

OMG people

Nerf gun not "nerf this" gun

that's not a nerf gun


that's a nerf gun

[wanderer]

Joe Decker, on 06 February 2014 - 05:46 AM, said:

I agree that the whole Jumpjet Mechanic needs to be overworked.

1. Jump Height per JJ in Relation to the Mechs Tonnage is important. One JJ should lift up a 30 Tons Mech more than it lifts a 90 Tons Mech. It should not be possible to lift a 90 Ton Mech with a single JJ to that Height. Just put the Number of JJ's and the Weight of each Mechtype in a correct Relation to each other.

Except that for the 30 tonner, the jet weight is .5 ton.

For the 90-tonner, it's two tons. Why would four times the thrust not lift 3 times the tonnage at -least- the same amount, even taking potential inefficiency from a larger jet in mind?

[cranect]

I agree with making the single jj not viable anymore. I also think that if falling damage and collision were in then poptarters will have to make sure to slow themselves down and if they land on a teammate then its lights out. Also if srms were fixed then people would be able to brawl more effectively. For instance if I can get my SHD 2D2 with 20 srms then that highlander that is hit should be hurting and not able to take 10-15 volleys and still have torso armor. If the arms rip through in 2-5 salvos then the highlander would be terrible in close. It already isn't very good in the close range combat.

[Mechteric]

wanderer, on 06 February 2014 - 05:52 AM, said:

Except that for the 30 tonner, the jet weight is .5 ton.

For the 90-tonner, it's two tons. Why would four times the thrust not lift 3 times the tonnage at -least- the same amount, even taking potential inefficiency from a larger jet in mind?

Exactly this, the limitation for heavier mechs is that they get fewer maximum jump jets, usually around 3 for assaults, 4-5 for most heavies, 5-6 for most mediums, and more for lights. The problem is that nobody cares really about how high they lift you off the ground because they lift you SO SLOW to that height. Faster boosting jump jets would make people care about the height more!

[Joe Decker]

wanderer, on 06 February 2014 - 05:52 AM, said:

Except that for the 30 tonner, the jet weight is .5 ton.

For the 90-tonner, it's two tons. Why would four times the thrust not lift 3 times the tonnage at -least- the same amount, even taking potential inefficiency from a larger jet in mind?

So far that is true, just let me add this :

Tonnage does not really balance this Thing. For a light Mech sacrificing 0,5 tons can mean more than 2 tons for an Assault Mech.

If the bigger Jumpjet would need 2 Tons and 3 or 4 critical Slots instead of 0,5 Tons and 1 Slot it would be balanced. It is bigger, so it should use also more Space.

It would be balanced than from that Aspect, now please add the higher falling Damage because of the higher Weight and the System might Work.

[DeathlyEyes]

wanderer, on 06 February 2014 - 04:44 AM, said:

Or, you know, we'd like to be able to shield and twist away from more concentrated damage when we're running along in the open, shooting at each other instead of playing Snipewarrior Online. Nowadays, it's just "wait for the guy to turn to fire, dump a broadside into his CT and core him, repeat" if you're infighting, or "pogo up, put entire arsenal in single location on way down, repeat until target destroyed".



So in other words, you want to be able to commit to cover and not have to leave it under any circumstances, including being able to deliver your full firepower to a target for the fractional time it's exposed while they're jumping up and down too. That's what a PPC/AC boat with jets can and does do, because it's the logical thing. Fewest volleys fired to kill target, minimal exposure to similar volleys thanks to poptarting, and non-similar configs suffer because your motion auto-spreads damage AND you can spread it further naturally with lasers, SRMs don't matter, and lock-on weapons have their locks broken naturally as you drop behind cover, frequently losing lock before it's even fully acquired.

Yes, kids. That's incredibly competitive meta we're looking at there.

You clearly haven't read my long post yet. There are other stratagies to combat this if my entire plan is implemented. They just need to be executed as a group. Also there are mechanics to break people out of camp spots such as base objectives, arty strikes and flanking. Sure if you rush straight on at a poptarting line you will get shot up.

[Bagheera]

Paul Inouye, on 05 February 2014 - 05:09 PM, said:

Sitting across from the studio from me is a board with all the 'Mechs on it. In my crosshairs... the Highlander. More info to follow along with intended implementation date. Just giving you all a heads up.

You have a real problem missing the forest for the trees, don't you?

Full disclosure: I own 0 Highlanders. They are a symptom, not the cause. Please treat the cause.

[cranect]

I have personally found that if you get close to the ac5/ppc builds they are not very good at close combat. In a lot of the maps closing the distance is hardly a problem. Right now you have to wait a long time though because very few people use short ranged weaponry. I personally thought the ac20 was fine. The ac40 jaegers were the easiest mech to blow up in the game. They were severely underarmored. It was hard to hit a light with the ac20 before now it is even harder. The srms dont even have a 50% hit ratio some of the time so they are practically useless. With 20 srms I should be able to expect 30-40 damage when they are fired from close range. Right now I can count on somewhere between 10-20.... Right now the only thing to be feared up close is 6+ medium lasers. If you fix some of the close range weapons more people will carry them. Matches will still probably start with sniping but the jump snipers would no longer stand a chance when the range closes. Right now they arent very good up close. If srms were fixed and more people had brawling builds then the current meta would be terrible up close.

[SgtKinCaiD]

I agree with the others : while maybe JJ need tunning, fixing SRM registration is more important for balance !

[Wriath]

SRM balance will fix EVERYTHING. Do that janx.

[Bagheera]

CapperDeluxe, on 06 February 2014 - 05:56 AM, said:

Exactly this, the limitation for heavier mechs is that they get fewer maximum jump jets, usually around 3 for assaults, 4-5 for most heavies, 5-6 for most mediums, and more for lights. The problem is that nobody cares really about how high they lift you off the ground because they lift you SO SLOW to that height. Faster boosting jump jets would make people care about the height more!

Actually, all of the weight arguments over JJs are moot until they are tuned so that a given mech needs more than 1 to be effective.

[SweetJackal]

Paul Inouye, on 05 February 2014 - 05:27 PM, said:

Just going back to the good old days of poking the dragon and running away.

Yes... JJs are being looked at and specifically the initial burst turn. And there are other Mechs on the firing range.

I might be "On an Island" here but I really hope that JJ actually get a mobility buff.

Now hear me out before you burn me as a sacrifice to Comstar.

Once upon a time all mechs shared the same movement profiles. A Cicida that moved at 80 kph moved in the exact same manner as a 60+ tonner that moved at 80 kph. Eventually each mech was divided into one of several groups of movement profiles and movement profiles became another balancing point between chassis.

Doing the same for JJs, giving differences in JJ Movement Profiles could allow for JJs to not be strictly straight lines for otherwise mobile Mediums and Lights without turning Heavies and Assaults into Ninja Assassins. Partial Movement or Omni-Directional Movement could be tested in design this way.

Cause right now the easiest point to hit a Light Mech is when they are in the air as their movement is predictable.

[wanderer]

Joe Decker, on 06 February 2014 - 06:01 AM, said:

If the bigger Jumpjet would need 2 Tons and 3 or 4 critical Slots instead of 0,5 Tons and 1 Slot it would be balanced. It is bigger, so it should use also more Space.

A small laser, a medium laser and a medium pulse laser all take up the same 1 crit, but are .5, 1 ton, and 2 tons respectively. For that matter, an AC/2 weighs in at SIX tons for one crit. Changing critical spaces would also break construction systems. So would tonnage changes.


Strapping a 300 rated engine into a Jenner does not require more critical spaces than it's stock 245.
You're not getting tonnage or crit space changes. Yeah, bigger 'Mechs should take more damage from falls, and you can reasonably alter the PERFORMANCE of jump jets- and that's stuff that's within reason. We should think of jets the same way we think of engines- more jets equals more airspeed, more climb, and more agility (and the number of jets should be limited by engine rating, JUST LIKE IT IS FOR ALL STOCK DESIGNS). A slower stumper like a Highlander won't be as mobile that way, even with max jets, while a light with high numbers of jets should be able to dance like a butterfly by comparison.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Appreciate the communication, but remember it involves listening as well.

I hope you are reading what people are saying here.

[Kyle Wright]

WHY NOT JUST PUT TONNAGE LIMITS???? UHHH HELLO, PROBLEM SOLVED.