213 replies to this topic

[FactorlanP]

Joseph Mallan, on 07 February 2014 - 11:26 AM, said:

but if we had that balance with the new hit Reg... I wonder if it would make my inner killer happy?

Joseph Mallan, on 07 February 2014 - 11:26 AM, said:

1) We are on the same page, I had a few years of combined arms CBT and the added depth was awesome.

2)Agreed... if you are a tank, Aerospace fighter or infantry. But Mech to Mech, you are talking king to king, sometimes the King just doesn't live long in those match ups.

3) right now the TTK is much much longer than on TT, 10 turns was an average company on company match length. That is less than 2 minutes if turns were real time. I don't see many matches ending in less than 4 minutes.

4) I always went after every GaussCat my fellow Lawmen pinged for my 2 LRM20s. Those were good days, Gauss and LRMs could counter each other, And LRMs and SRM had a 50/50 on one another. PPCs stunk, and ACs were spotty at best. but if we hade that balance with the new hit Reg... I wonder if it would make my inner killer happy?

Sounds like we really aren't too far apart...

My TT days are pretty far behind me... I don't recall our TT battles being so short.


I would love to get the pacing that we had in Closed Beta but with better hit reg...

[Joseph Mallan]

Mercules, on 07 February 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

This depends on how you played TT. Double Blind TT which would compare to how we are in MWO would end up with about 10 turns of finding the enemy several more of maneuvering followed by the actual 5-10 turn fight. In a well played tactical game you might even see people breaking contact and re-engaging.

I ended up known in my group for being annoying as hell. Rarely would I allow a stand up fight but would tend to take mobile mechs and mechs with ways to start fires. "Damn it! Merc lit the damn map on fire again and disappeared in the smoke. I hate it when he takes Striker Lances."

We saw 30 turn games frequently.

Great point, But how many of those games were more than 10 turns of actual combat do you think?

FactorlanP, on 07 February 2014 - 11:36 AM, said:

Sounds like we really aren't too far apart...

My TT days are pretty far behind me... I don't recall our TT battles being so short.


I would love to get the pacing that we had in Closed Beta but with better hit reg...

That was pretty good pacing wasn't it!

[Mercules]

Joseph Mallan, on 07 February 2014 - 11:38 AM, said:

Great point, But how many of those games were more than 10 turns of actual combat do you think?

Depends... Stock Mechs tended to make the game last longer in general.... ehem.

What I DO know is bashing through the armor of an Atlas often took 4-5 turns with 3-4 mechs focus firing upon it. So at least a minute. In MWO even an Atlas melts under FF from 3-4 mechs in less than a minute.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mercules, on 07 February 2014 - 11:47 AM, said:

Depends... Stock Mechs tended to make the game last longer in general.... ehem.

What I DO know is bashing through the armor of an Atlas often took 4-5 turns with 3-4 mechs focus firing upon it. So at least a minute. In MWO even an Atlas melts under FF from 3-4 mechs in less than a minute.

I never tracked it when I was playing Stock TRO, but I seem to remember finishing lance on lance in 3-4 hours. Giving the New players the better mechs was hard, but when they saw the good sportsmanship, and creative play in PoS by vets, they got ideas of their own, an were generally hooked.

[Tombstoner]

Sandpit, on 06 February 2014 - 06:53 PM, said:

See which one gets actual notice from the devs? I may not agree with the OP but at least he was sensible and articulate. This along with recent NARC changes should put any and everyone on notice. PGI is paying attention and I swear to baby jeebus the next person that posts "PGI doesn't listen to its customers" should get no responses other than linking this thread.

I was once one of those "PGI doesn't listen to its customers" in fact i compare it to talking with my parents.
PGI has stood by there statement for continued ongoing improvements in outreach and i am now one of the converted, PGI does listen and will consider player input.

As for the OP ideas cant agree with most of it. i feel the game need to go back to alpha and build in systems that takes care of the effects of Art work on TTK and the synergy with bundled weapons and jump jets. Then ghost heat can be removed.

Edited by Tombstoner, 07 February 2014 - 11:58 AM.

[Mister Blastman]

Jman5, on 06 February 2014 - 06:03 PM, said:

One area of uncertainty I have is why mechs gain such survivability when they start jumping in place while taking heavy fire. Are they just naturally harder to hit because they're moving up and down? Is it the mid-air twisting? Or is it something more insidious like some sort of netcode issue?

Dirt on a hill = unlimited armor

The best jump-snipers will lift off just high enough to crest, fire and drop immediately. What this means is the second you see them, they are firing and if you return fire, your shots don't reach them in time before they drop down or your lasers don't have enough time to paint the target and hurt them.

Anyone can jump-snipe. Only the pros can do it properly.

There's a lot more to it than that but that is the biggest advantage to it--being able to snap-shot the enemy without taking return fire. This is also why snipers never use lasers. They fire in an instant-window which also is why direct damage is breaking the game.

[wanderer]

Company on company fights with an actual decent field (ie, not a mere 4 maps for 24 'Mechs) took entire weekends where I was playing. Turnwise, we're talking many dozens of turns, not a dozen.

Play on a table vs. a hexgrid map and the extra space means you don't have fish-in-barrel battles.

[MischiefSC]

Joseph Mallan, on 07 February 2014 - 10:15 AM, said:

Cept I have had lots and lots of very skilled people tell me that when you are in a fight, the faster you can put your opponent down the better it is for your personal well being. Was Mike Tyson a bad boxer cause he could knock out his opponents in just a few seconds? How well did he do long drawn out fights? My martial art teachers uniformly tell students to end fights quickly to limit harm to themselves.

So I bring that philosophy to the computer as well, The less TTK for me, the better for me to survive a match.

That only applies in a largely one-hit-one-kill environment, like real life. When a clean hit to the temple will put you on the mat it's always best to go strong offense. Same with any sort of military environment; you want to shoot the other guy first since whoever lands their shot first wins.

There is no real world combat environment that correlates well to this game and that's where the confusion comes in. Battletech is in many ways more like chess than a brawl. Someone can get lucky once or twice but in chess for example it's not about one move or two moves, it's about twenty. Because of that skill presents an exponentially bigger advantage.

The higher the TTK the more skill comes in to play. The more luck, good and bad, washes out. Sort of like how the matchmaker works - the more samples you have the more averages remove the 'noise' and you're left with the distilled skill.

If I can kill you in 1 shot then luck plays a huge factor. If it takes 10 clean hits to kill you then luck is almost irrelevant unless we're very, very evenly matched.

The key to game balance is about keeping things on an even footing while keeping them different. With a bit of a nerf to the pinpoint poptart meta if brawling comes back into scope while still leaving long range combat viable you'll have a wider set of options to choose from, which is good. SRMs play very different from PPCs but if their kill rate is 50/50 compared to each other then you've got a big win.

Longer TTK is also important because more time on the field in a battle gives more opportunities to learn from mistakes, it also helps scrub that luck factor and push the advantage of skill. That's a big deal in making Elo more accurate as well.

It's a good thing.

Edited to add -

Comparing TT to MW:O most 1 vs 1 conflicts in MW:O last about 20 seconds. Maybe less, depending on the mech. The reason the matches last 5-8 minutes is 12 v 12 and large environments. How often in TT did you have 2 mediums able to destroy an assault mech in 8 seconds?

I'm all for making MW:O have a comparable TTK with tabletop. The issue right now is TTK on a heavy or assault is less than 1 turn in TT. How often did you have 1 or 2 mechs destroying another mech in 1 or 2 salvos?

Edited by MischiefSC, 07 February 2014 - 12:44 PM.

[FactorlanP]

wanderer, on 07 February 2014 - 12:32 PM, said:

Company on company fights with an actual decent field (ie, not a mere 4 maps for 24 'Mechs) took entire weekends where I was playing. Turnwise, we're talking many dozens of turns, not a dozen.

Play on a table vs. a hexgrid map and the extra space means you don't have fish-in-barrel battles.

This is how we played. One of the guys in our group had several 4x8 foot tables in his basement that we could arrange in different ways.

There were several of us in the group who were (or had been) model railroad enthusiasts and adept at building terrain.

I built a city from card stock and balsa wood that occupied a 4ft x 4ft square. Streets and tall buildings. Blind corners. And some long roads that could be sniped down. Jump Jetters could get on top of buildings. I wish I had photos of it, but it was better than 20 years ago now...

Double blind games in the city were a blast. Cat and mouse affairs. Turn the corner and find yourself facing big and bad crap your pants moments...

Best way to play TT in my opinion.

Edited by FactorlanP, 07 February 2014 - 12:40 PM.

[Jman5]

wanderer, on 07 February 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

As we've seen, the devs (Paul specifically) have said that TTK is imbalanced- 'Mechs are dying too fast and too easily. That puts the crosshairs squarely on the weapons that have significantly superior kill speed. The autocannon and the PPC, because frankly, you need to deliver less damage per kill with those than lasers or missiles (and as a LRM afficiando, believe me, I know.)

It's why I advocate so strongly for AC's to go to short-burst and PPC's to splash damage. A well-sniped burst of AC/20 fire will still wreck a cockpit, but someone on the ball may be able to flinch or evade enough of the shot to leave them hurting but not automatically cockpit-dead, albeit likely with serious damage to the head and surrounding hitboxes.

Why not just do something simpler and reduce the raw damage a PPC can deliver? The Devs seemed perfectly willing to alter LRM, SRM, and Laser damages. I don't get why they're so reluctant to touch the damage values of pinpoint weapons. Change PPCs from 10 to 8 damage. Not only would that reduce the overall alpha capability of these troublesome builds, but it would reduce the amount of 1-hit critting of items.

[East Indy]

Jman5, on 07 February 2014 - 01:26 PM, said:

Change PPCs from 10 to 8 damage. Not only would that reduce the overall alpha capability of these troublesome builds, but it would reduce the amount of 1-hit critting of items.

You'd need to follow with autocannon nerfs -- not out of the question, but it couldn't be done out of context.

[RapidFire7]

From what I've been reading over the past half an hour on the two threads, I agree that Assault Jump Jets are overpowered and it should take them quite a few jump jets to get in the air. This is probably the only thing causing imbalance. Not Assaults having too much maneuverability.

Here's a good quote from Travelbug: "so basically paul wants assaults to be slow, lumbering machines. we all know they really dont have the armor to tank in 12 man" so any movement nerfs will see people going back to the old CTF-3D

As for the 4 Highlander poptart debate, if you're dumb enough to just stand out in the open, of course you are going to get one-shotted by 4 Highlanders.

That's what an Assault mech does best.
Blow stuff up.

Mechwarrior is a game of strategy just as much as it is about combat. In Modern Warfare, you don't stand out in the open. Lo and behold, you soon die quickly. Your computer-controlled enemies also get behind cover to avoid dying.

Case Study:
Watch the game and then listen to one of Smoke Jaguars' comments at 5:29
"If they had a bit more cover and they'd stuck to it, they would have had us. But they went straight out into the open".

Here's the thing. You have to play smart if you want to win. That's what I taught my Support Class in the Seraphim and we used to tear up the battlefield during training. For every advantage you have, there's always a disadvantage. Meta mechs have their disadvantage too - they can't brawl up close. I've learned that from using my RegoMeta build (exclusive to Seraphim only) and they can one-shot with devastating effect, but if you get caught in close combat, you're as good as dead. If you're clever/lucky enough to get a couple of mechs in close to a mech on the edge of a firing line, it is possible to take it down. You just do the same with the others. Very difficult to brawl with a mech that has PPC's (minimum distance 90 metres) and UAC5's (Jam all the time)
_______________________________________________________________________

Here's an idea - in Mechwarrior 4, you had different types of armour to choose from (Ferro Fibrous, Reflective and Reactive). Reactive worked better against ballistics/missiles and Reflective worked better against energy weapons.

If PGI looked at introducing Reflective and Reactive armour, would you support that decision?

(I've probably forgotten a few things, will go back and look at some other posts)

[Mercules]

RFMG567, on 07 February 2014 - 01:46 PM, said:

As for the 4 Highlander poptart debate, if you're dumb enough to just stand out in the open, of course you are going to get one-shotted by 4 Highlanders.

Because of how JJs work there is very little that can actually be considered "cover". The only way you can be "In Cover" against a jump sniper is if you hide behind a building/rock that doesn't allow you to return fire in any way shape or form. At which point they simply shift around (because remember you can't be firing at them to keep them from flanking you) until they have negated that piece of "cover" and pop to snipe you again.

I'm not saying people can't deal with them, I am simply saying they are the dominate strategy and one that is 4 times easier to do than any other strategy.

[Artgathan]

Assault and Heavy mechs are too maneuverable. Nothing can escape their sights.

[Mercules]

Artgathan, on 07 February 2014 - 02:15 PM, said:

Assault and Heavy mechs are too maneuverable. Nothing can escape their sights.

MOST... I can still run circles around Stalkers and most Atlas. Then again with 12 people on the map that is 4 more that might be able to save them from an annoying light. I tend to put very tall land features between my mech and Highlanders all the while zigzagging. They can spin too easy and good pilots will light you up.

[BOWMANGR]

I just wanted to post that I'm really really happy that Paul talked about increasing the Time To Kill of mechs. This is sorely needed and can't come soon enough.

If mechs are actually harder to destroy, then the good pilots will remain effective because they will consistently put damage to their targets while the lazy easymode poptarts and AC40 Jagers with glass legs are going to have a hard time.

Increasing the Time To Kill cannot. come. soon. enough. along with tonnage restrictions to reduce the weapon tonnage available therefore reducing even more the damage output of a team.This alone helps with TTK issues.

Edited by BOWMANGR, 07 February 2014 - 02:27 PM.

[RapidFire7]

I think if PGI introduced Reflective and Reactive Armour now, it would make mechs harder to kill. It isn't introduced until about 3060 but I think MWO needs it now.

"Laser Reflective Armor dissipates energy weapon attacks 50% more efficiently than other armor types, reducing the amount of damage taken by the 'Mech mounting it. Despite the name, Laser Reflective Armor is effective against all energy weapons, not just lasers. PPCs, Flamers, and Plasma Rifles and Cannons are all less effective against it."

"When these weapons hit a unit with Reactive Armor protecting the area, the damage is reduced by 50%. The microscopic explosives embedded in the armor redirect the force of the weapon away from the protected unit. This force redirect also reduces the armor-piercing effects of Tandem-Charge Missiles, Armor-Piercing autocannon ammunition, and BattleMech Taser spikes."

I hate to be comparing everything to Mechwarrior 4, but Mechs were pretty damn hard to kill with this kind of armour on it. No need for weapon nerfs when you have armour reducing damage by a whopping 50%

Yes?
No?

[wanderer]

Quote

Why not just do something simpler and reduce the raw damage a PPC can deliver? The Devs seemed perfectly willing to alter LRM, SRM, and Laser damages. I don't get why they're so reluctant to touch the damage values of pinpoint weapons. Change PPCs from 10 to 8 damage. Not only would that reduce the overall alpha capability of these troublesome builds, but it would reduce the amount of 1-hit critting of items.

Because the amount of damage isn't the problem, it's all of the damage going to one spot instantly. Splash damage would also reduce 1-hit crits as well.

Laser, Streak, and LRM damage went up because they spread damage well enough that they actually weren't killing well ENOUGH otherwise in some cases.

[wanderer]

Quote

I hate to be comparing everything to Mechwarrior 4, but Mechs were pretty damn hard to kill with this kind of armour on it. No need for weapon nerfs when you have armour reducing damage by a whopping 50%

That's because MW4 didn't actually put the weak points in. Reactive armor has a chance to blow itself up every time it was hit, de-armoring the location completely and damaging the internals as well. And the balancing weak points for Reflective didn't really exist either- the armor simply was "reduce damage of this type" in MW4.

You really, REALLY want a defensive armor buff, allow hardened armor, have it cause mobility and speed reduction penalties, but it'd effectively double the armor tonnage a 'Mech is capable of carrying. As in "survive a dual AC/20 to the head" protection. And it's canonically available as of 3047, though useless to Omnimechs and basically "prototype" armor for decades.

Edited by wanderer, 07 February 2014 - 04:52 PM.

[Daekar]

Paul Inouye, on 06 February 2014 - 02:53 PM, said:

[color="cyan"]I'll chime in here since the write up was well thought out and presented. (Not that other posts haven't been the same, but I'm being prodded by other internal influences)

Josef above touched on the critical issue that we are looking at... increasing the time to kill. I'll go as far as saying this... some of the medium and heavy 'Mechs went through a quirk balance pass. This has not happened for any of the assaults. Currently, assaults are a little too agile for what they are... the giant sledge hammers of the battlefield. The two Mechs which are currently above expected behaviour are the Highlander AND the Victor. Now keep in mind, it is not just the chassis that is the problem in this case, the jump jet effects on turning and lift also compound the issue with these two 'Mechs specifically. We will be addressing both issues at the same time.

Remember.. the nerf gun is a mid caliber gun... it can do little to medium changes but it's not going to render the targets useless.[/color]

Thank you, Paul. I'm glad to see good sense posted on the forums, and even more glad to see it coming from you! I agree that keeping TTK elevated is important, and agree that the assaults are too agile. Looking forward to your fixes!