50 replies to this topic

[Buckminster]

Koniving, on 07 February 2014 - 10:27 AM, said:

The speed increases have helped the 2X and 4X but I feel those changes caused them to lose part of their identity.

They lose some of their identity, but only some. Their layouts are still fairly different, especially when compared to some of the other light mechs. And back when they had a 245 cap, they had a top speed of 114 before speed tweak, which was painfully slow. Most of the new 55 ton mechs are almost as fast, but with a lot more weight for weapons.

Also spoilered as off topic.

Spoiler

I really like your armor concept. I understand that PGI was going with the mech construction rules as written - where the only limit to a mechs armor was it's internal structure - but it does put a big white wash of vanilla on everything. Mechs like the Hunchback were known for their massive amount of armor, it was one of the reasons you'd grab one in the first place. The fact that a Trebuchet can carry just as much negates one of it's biggest advantages.

I also wish that the engine caps were more in line with the base (I'm looking at you, Commando) mechs that were the traditional speed demons aren't much faster than the other lights.

[Victor Morson]

Simply4Riot, on 07 February 2014 - 06:58 AM, said:

I'm newer to the game a need some help picking a mech I've enjoyed playing in the light trial spider running up and bugging people and all that I have got a few kills here and there and a bunch of assts so just looking on some imput on were to go after the trial mech thx for the help

If you enjoy the Spider (Which is a decent 'mech) I'd recommend you pick up the Jenner next, and then move to the Spider again after. It's a very powerful anti-light light, with a lot more firepower than the Spider for sure.

The Spider is useful as an ECM 'mech but I really do think almost all light pilots would be better off picking up a Jenner as their core, and branching out from there to the Spider/Raven.

In a 1 on 1 fight, the Jenner will cream a Spider, but the Spider again has a pretty solid niche ECM'ing other 'mechs. If you do stay Spider, try a 1 ER Large, 2 Medium Laser build on one, as it's very effective at constantly damaging heavies.

[luxebo]

Have you tried the other trials (dunno if you said) especially the Cicada? The Dragon and Stalker both have different feelings on them, while the Cicada is very similar and even has the same speed. It's heavier, bulkier, and stronger, but it's larger, which is a drawback. Check it out as well, as it's not bad of a trial.

[Koniving]

Meanwhile on the battlefront.

Spoiler

LB-10x + AC/2, 2 streaks, 3 ML.

Below, was fighting 3 (myself, an Atlas, someone else?) on 8 or more for control over Kappa. Enemies included a Shadowhawk, a Dragon, a Victor, a Thunderbolt, at least 2 Jenners, a Locust, and a Spider. The other kill, a Jagermech, was afterward in the last 20 points of resources to collect.
Wounds: Left leg, no armor and orange. Right torso, ruby red armor. Otherwise orange and yellow armor.

Loadout: LB-10x, AC/5, 3 streaks, 2 ML.

And finally, special thanks to Verrick who has provided this awesome photo edit.

Read the chest; my favorite part.

Dropping onto the field and looking for someone to join.

And back on topic -- any Jenner, Raven, or Spider would make fairly good starters. Or save up and wait a week for the Firestarters to hit the cbills.

Edited by Koniving, 07 February 2014 - 05:26 PM.

[ImperialKnight]

TL:DR

If you liked the trial spider, get the Spider series and master the 5D and 5K. The 5V is a piece of **** though. The upcoming Firestarter will also be a very good light mech.

[Buckminster]

Still a bit off topic, but relevant to previous off-topic.

Koniving, on 07 February 2014 - 10:27 AM, said:

The problem is we got armor equality. If the 3-L isn't limited to lower armor then allowed to have both ECM and superior speed then how is the 2x and 4x not gimped with their superior traits given away for free? The armor idea I've had, stock + 100 = new max, would put the 3-L's max at 261, the 2x and 4x at 308 and 334 respectively, and they'd all still have 119 structure health.

What if, instead of doing a "stock + 100" method, what if you based it on weight? Make it "stock + 1 ton" or similar. What this does is make FF actually useful. As it stands, FF is universally worse than ES, and the only reason to take it is because you have a lot of crit slots left. But if your max armor is based on weight, then lighter armor gives an actual benefit.

I wouldn't do that in the current max-armor system, but if you based things on stock armor layouts, it'd provide a benefit without breaking the game.

Looking at the Jager-S, as an example:
Base armor: 192
Base + 1 ton: 224
Base + 1 ton + FF: 250
Current Max: 422

So even with an FF boost, it's still a lot less armor than current maximums. Granted, this may push the meta towards mechs with heavier stock armor, but it would definitely add some variety to the mechs.

[Koniving]

Buckminster, on 11 February 2014 - 06:20 PM, said:

Still a bit off topic, but relevant to previous off-topic.

What if, instead of doing a "stock + 100" method, what if you based it on weight? Make it "stock + 1 ton" or similar. What this does is make FF actually useful. As it stands, FF is universally worse than ES, and the only reason to take it is because you have a lot of crit slots left. But if your max armor is based on weight, then lighter armor gives an actual benefit.

I wouldn't do that in the current max-armor system, but if you based things on stock armor layouts, it'd provide a benefit without breaking the game.

Looking at the Jager-S, as an example:
Base armor: 192
Base + 1 ton: 224
Base + 1 ton + FF: 250
Current Max: 422

So even with an FF boost, it's still a lot less armor than current maximums. Granted, this may push the meta towards mechs with heavier stock armor, but it would definitely add some variety to the mechs.

The idea has some promise, but if PGI's intention is what was hinted (return of repair and rearm after CW's launch) then Ferro will instantly get its value right off the bat (it was between 5 and 8 times cheaper to repair than endo steel).

Regular armor, that's a 32 point buff. Ferro, that's a 36 point buff. I suppose it could be done but stock + 32 or 36 isn't gonna be much for anyone, PGI would have to completely overhaul the weapons and remove the upfront damage of the ballistics -- something they absolutely will not do. With that, PGI wouldn't even consider it. So it needs to be more than + 1 ton worth.

The issue with having it vary depending on the mech's default ferro and/or standard status is that complicates things and open the window for bugs. Now, if they make it so that mechs that come with Ferro simply have the 36 point boost for stock+1ton, well you can switch to regular armor and still get that boost but it'd avoid the bug-hunt they'd have to do.

(Edit: Reread it. Okay, basically you get 1 ton extra armor. And I figured out how you got the numbers. If mech has say 8 tons of armor [as a new max from 7 tons stock], then the added benefit of Ferro is 8 tons at 36 points per ton instead of regular armor's 32 points per ton. 8 tons regular is 256 and 8 tons ferro is 288. Makes sense in a way.)

Don't get me wrong, on paper it's a neat idea. From a bit of experience though, it'd be iffy. Just depends on how competent PGI is.

Personally I think if PGI thought about it, some of the manuals describe (as pure fluff) Ferro as being a downgrade from the current standard. But the difference between them is that one (as pure fluff) has more energy resistance and the other has more ballistic resistance. But I can't recall which way is which. But resistances have their own niches and issues, too.

Edited by Koniving, 11 February 2014 - 06:47 PM.

[Buckminster]

Koniving, on 11 February 2014 - 06:32 PM, said:

(Edit: Reread it. Okay, basically you get 1 ton extra armor. And I figured out how you got the numbers. If mech has say 8 tons of armor [as a new max from 7 tons stock], then the added benefit of Ferro is 8 tons at 36 points per ton instead of regular armor's 32 points per ton. 8 tons regular is 256 and 8 tons ferro is 288. Makes sense in a way.)

Yeah, this is what I was going for.

I don't think it'd ever happen, I think there are some choices that would have made for a great game but are too late to implement - just as I'd really like to see stricter rules for weapon hardpoints, I know that PGI will never be able to go that route, now that we already have the system we do.

And regarding R+R costs, FF may be cheaper, but it's also on the outside and will require more frequent repair.

Edited by Buckminster, 11 February 2014 - 07:18 PM.

[Koniving]

Buckminster, on 11 February 2014 - 07:16 PM, said:

Yeah, this is what I was going for.

I don't think it'd ever happen, I think there are some choices that would have made for a great game but are too late to implement - just as I'd really like to see stricter rules for weapon hardpoints, I know that PGI will never be able to go that route, now that we already have the system we do.

And regarding R+R costs, FF may be cheaper, but it's also on the outside and will require more frequent repair.

True. But it was something like a cbill per point, where the structure was if 8 times more, 8 cbills per point. Of course, this is on top of actual armor and structure, so if actual armor was 10 cbills per point, it's now 11 with Ferro. If structure was something like 16 + Endo's 8, that's 24 cbills per point on top of the total repair to the armor loss.

Except I recall the bills being considerably higher for either in total.

Honestly I don't care so much for size restrictions. Truth be told I tend to prefer variant restrictions. For example you could get a class 20 autocannon on a Firestarter's chest, but it definitely won't be a high caliber, high damage per bullet variant. It'd be more likely a rapid fire very low caliber style that either fires in bursts or (a slower) full auto. But, that'd require the effort of doing variants in the first place.

Of course, even without variant restrictions... in an ideal world autocannons would have recoil too. The smaller you are and the higher the caliber of weapon, the more recoil you get. Too much recoil and you fall over or worse. It'd definitely make for some interesting builds. Especially considering that the Cauldron Born's single shot UAC/20 is the only 203mm (maximum size, only 'one shot = full damage' in fluff mountable on a mech) that is supposed to only be mountable on the Cauldron Born simply because the isn't any taller than a Firestarter, and is as long and wide as a Stalker at 65 tons. It's referenced that even at 100 tons, a humanoid mech cannot handle the recoil of using it without first bracing in place (mainly because of being significantly taller; the higher you push on something the easier it is to tip over, and being narrower in length and width which makes an Atlas akin to a Spindle waiting to be tipped). The Cauldron Born itself is also referenced as not being able to handle using two of that particular kind of UAC/20.

Edited by Koniving, 11 February 2014 - 08:08 PM.

[Satan n stuff]

Koniving, on 11 February 2014 - 06:32 PM, said:

The idea has some promise, but if PGI's intention is what was hinted (return of repair and rearm after CW's launch) then Ferro will instantly get its value right off the bat (it was between 5 and 8 times cheaper to repair than endo steel).

With the difference being that you were more or less guaranteed you'd have to repair most of it, while endo steel might come out of a battle with only light damage. Endo steel builds were usually cheaper to run than ferro fibrous builds because of that, and they're better too.

[Koniving]

Satan n stuff, on 12 February 2014 - 07:07 AM, said:

With the difference being that you were more or less guaranteed you'd have to repair most of it, while endo steel might come out of a battle with only light damage. Endo steel builds were usually cheaper to run than ferro fibrous builds because of that, and they're better too.

Emphasis on might. Don't forget, typically a minimum of 12 people die every single match. Usually more. Those who died... lost body parts. Many lost several body parts. For example this poor guy would have to replace 70 points of endo steel structure on top of the armor. Not to mention the repairs to both of his AC/20s and the XL engine. Ouch.

But yes. The player's value of one or another depends entirely upon whether or not the player is prone to living or dying. For some, Endo is more worth while. For others, Ferro ultimately may be the better choice. Though I still agree it needs something more suited to this game. From the Vidblog#2, it's clear PGI's willing to break rules to balance clans. Why not inner sphere tech?

[Buckminster]

The real question is if they'll actually bring it back or not. The CW crowd may want it, but the casual players (the one PGI seems to be courting) will get turned off if they spend lots of time and C-bills to outfit a mech, only to find that it runs at a deficit. I know that I hated the fact that I upgraded my Catapult to Artemis, only to find that I rarely make what the R&R cost at the end of a match. A string of bad games means I'm broke.

And while I understand the concept of "balance through economy", it really needs to be done at a community level, where a couple light mechs help support the heavier mechs monetarily. They need to find a way to keep the big and expensive stuff rare, without financially crippling the players that choose to use it.

[Victor Morson]

Repair & Rearm was a horrible mechanic in practice because it separated the haves and have nots horribly.

Balancing through economy is a terrible idea in a game like this as it is basically saying "Balance for units to have top-tier gear to slaughter folks without." I'd pretty much never run in anything but a 4-man again if I was paying tons of R&R Costs.

[BaconTWOfourACTUAL]

Satan n stuff, on 07 February 2014 - 07:24 AM, said:

Well if you like the trial Spider you can always buy yourself a set of Spiders.

In order to unlock the elite skills... do you need to keep the mechs? or once you master the basic, can you sell them?

[Osric Lancaster]

^^^ you 'can' sell them but you should get at least three 'Mechs in a weight class to elite first. Once you've unlocked elite skills on three 'Mechs in a weight class you can master any other 'Mech in that weight class as long as you've completed the basic skills for three variants of that chassis.
http://mwomercs.com/...3-elite-skills/

Victor Morson, on 12 February 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Repair & Rearm was a horrible mechanic in practice because it separated the haves and have nots horribly.

It just wasn't implemented well, and you could just as easily argue that airstrikes are 'bad' because only people with excess c-bucks can afford to spam them. I'd love to see rearm and repair costs back at least as an optional 'high stakes, high payoff' play option. Say you can only earn CW points or whatever when you're running a battle where your 'Mech is at stake. Call the 'normal' fights training battles or something.

Buckminster, on 11 February 2014 - 06:20 PM, said:

*snip*

I keep seeing people bring this up and it never seems any less terrible an idea. "Let Ferro give more armor for the same tonnage." The only 'Mechs that would benefit from it with no drawbacks are light 'Mechs. Anything heavier than a cicada isn't going to have room to fit endo and ferro. You'd be giving up tons of weapons and equipment to over-armor an assault in a meta that already heavily favors speed for survivability.

. . .

Oh right, the thread topic! Right. Hm. . .
I like 3L ravens and machine gun spiders, but the ember does that role better. I suspect the Firestarters you can get for c-bills are going to be hard on heat management, except that one with two ballistics and three energy. If you want punch, and don't want to wait, then go with the Jenner.

Edited by Osric Lancaster, 12 February 2014 - 12:36 PM.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

BaconTWOfourACTUAL, on 12 February 2014 - 12:23 PM, said:

In order to unlock the elite skills... do you need to keep the mechs? or once you master the basic, can you sell them?

You will need to keep them to spend exp on the elite tier skills. I would recommend keeping them at least until you've mastered the mechs you intend to keep. At that point I still recommend you keep them because sure enough a few weeks later you'll wish you had them.

[Alaskan Nobody]

BaconTWOfourACTUAL, on 12 February 2014 - 12:23 PM, said:

In order to unlock the elite skills... do you need to keep the mechs? or once you master the basic, can you sell them?

In order to unlock elite, you need to possess 3 variants of the same mech with the basics unlocked. (then you can sell 2 if you want)
In order to unlock master you need to possess 3 mechs of one weight class with elite unlocked.

IE:
Buy 3 Spiders - unlock the basics on all 3 - sell two - keep working on one
Buy 3 Commando - unlock basics on all 3 - sell two - keep working on one
Buy 3 Jenner - you know the drill by now - keep working on the one
All three kept mechs are at elite - unlocks master for all 3
Sell the Jenner and Commando, you can still put the XP toward mastery into your Spider.

(I've been testing this with my Heavies - Cataphract, Thunderbolt, and Jager)

Keep in mind you can only spend earned XP for mechs you currently own.

Edited by Shar Wolf, 12 February 2014 - 12:34 PM.

[Buckminster]

Osric Lancaster, on 12 February 2014 - 12:31 PM, said:

I keep seeing people bring this up and it never seems any less terrible an idea. "Let Ferro give more armor for the same tonnage." The only 'Mechs that would benefit from it with no drawbacks are light 'Mechs. Anything heavier than a cicada isn't going to have room to fit endo and ferro. You'd be giving up tons of weapons and equipment to over-armor an assault in a meta that already heavily favors speed for survivability.

I think it'd be a difference in conjunction with Koniving's max armor scheme - where max armor is based off of the original variant. No one takes it now because they can already go crazy with the amount of armor on a mech.

I go back to the example of the Jager-S: it only carries 6 tons of armor stock. With the current system, we can add in ES and an XL, and easily bump it up to 13 tons of armor. But if the max was only ever 6 tons, then you have a choice - make space for FF to gain some extra protection, or deal with the fact that you only have 6 tons of armor. That extra protection becomes worth more when you are strictly limited in the first place.

Also, if you can't max your armor, that's 7.5 tons of weight saving measures that you don't need. So instead of adding ES to make weight to add extra armor, you add FF to do it.

Edited by Buckminster, 12 February 2014 - 02:26 PM.

[Koniving]

Buckminster, on 12 February 2014 - 08:05 AM, said:

The real question is if they'll actually bring it back or not. The CW crowd may want it, but the casual players (the one PGI seems to be courting) will get turned off if they spend lots of time and C-bills to outfit a mech, only to find that it runs at a deficit. I know that I hated the fact that I upgraded my Catapult to Artemis, only to find that I rarely make what the R&R cost at the end of a match. A string of bad games means I'm broke.

And while I understand the concept of "balance through economy", it really needs to be done at a community level, where a couple light mechs help support the heavier mechs monetarily. They need to find a way to keep the big and expensive stuff rare, without financially crippling the players that choose to use it.

Victor Morson, on 12 February 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Repair & Rearm was a horrible mechanic in practice because it separated the haves and have nots horribly.

Balancing through economy is a terrible idea in a game like this as it is basically saying "Balance for units to have top-tier gear to slaughter folks without." I'd pretty much never run in anything but a 4-man again if I was paying tons of R&R Costs.

Repair and rearm by PGI's design was a horrible mechanic. And if we have fixed earnings it will continue to be without changes to it. Ages ago I came up with such ideas. It applied a very different set of tiers depending on what you were.

Spoiler

Lone wolf, CW treats this as a lone mercenary or a pick-up fighter. It'll also be occupied by most of the casuals. For my idea I lumped them with in with faction players.

So Lone Wolf and Faction Players the Faction you're fighting for at that moment pays for standard equipment (single heatsinks, standard structure, standard armor, standard engine) and you pay 'half' of the actual repair costs for weapons. There was of course a list of Lost Tech and Rare Tech stuff that they would not cover, assuming that every aspect of them were put into the game (i.e. LB-10x's ability to fire AC/10 ammo). They also pay for up to 4 tons each of any type of standard ammo. Meaning if you diversified your weapon types and didn't carry more than 4 tons of each weapon type's ammo you'd get a free ride through ammo.

The faction the lone wolf or faction player would not pay for non-standard ammo nor any consumed ammo beyond the 'contract agreement' of 4 tons per weapon type.

But that doesn't do for min-maxers who have to have all the same kind of weapon and the same kind of ammo. Thus if you wanna boat you're paying for the extra ammo you're gonna need.

Now this basically means when you first start and get a mech you have a free ride. The "have nots" just coast through collecting money. The starting ELO levels are filled with stock mechs and new players are advised ~not~ to upgrade right off the bat so that they can continue to enjoy their free ride. Occasionally in the low ELOs might be a slightly higher end mech that isn't content with coasting through and may run better stuff at risk of expenses. Teamwork to take them down needs to be learned early after all, and it means you're free to upgrade at your own risk.

Later, with CW's planned system of 'ranks' and income increases with loyalty to factions from said ranks, you're getting more money. I imagine quickly you could afford to make upgrades, carry anything you want, etc. Akin to lore, officer-ranked players are likely sporting very nice battlemechs custom tailored to their every need. And they pay a good chunk of their wages to fix it up too, depending of course on just how much they spammed the upgrades and improvements and boated the ammo.

Ideally, there would be a point where the player would reach, in which pilot is no longer considered a 'standard' serviceman and may pick up the bill on his or her own.

Within a faction or as a lone wolf, the idea of this concept is that a player -- so long as he or she is playing the game and doing something -- can never come out negative. The only way to really come out just 'even' in theory is log in and try to farm cbills by dropping without participation.

---------------

Mercenaries, however, get their beloved hardcore mode with full price repair and rearm at whatever the repair and rearm prices are. After all what are the mercs filled with? Meta players. Min-maxers. The people that would make more money than anyone else anyway. Especially since Merc Groups can determine and distribute income on their own and dish out ranks at their own whims.

And if you're a merc that got in over your head, side up with a faction like a lone wolf for a bit until you get on your feet. After all faction players and lone wolves always have some support. The mercs, welp you can always join the army if corporate life doesn't work out for ya.

Obviously the real idea is far better explained. However compared to "you pay for everything and it's 3/4ths the cost of buying it new," it's definitely a lot easier to manage.

The fully hashed out idea from early 2013 also came with manufacturer-related variant contingencies. Say standard equipment included faction-accessible factory produceable equipment [brand name engines, jumpjets, etc], Thus if you went off-brand, rival brand or black market to get it you were on your own.

In the future I'm either making my own battletech-based mechwarrior or I'm gonna use the ideas I've had to create my own or contribute to another franchise. Need to get through this game design college thing asap.

Edited by Koniving, 12 February 2014 - 06:19 PM.

[Osric Lancaster]

Buckminster, on 12 February 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

I go back to the example of the Jager-S: it only carries 6 tons of armor stock. With the current system, we can add in ES and an XL, and easily bump it up to 13 tons of armor. But if the max was only ever 6 tons, then you have a choice -

I'm pretty sure the choice most people would make in this example would just be to stop playing the JM6-S / DD and start playing the JM6-A. The only way this could be viable is if they solved the pinpoint alpha meta first. Speed may be life, but alpha is King. You might like the idea of squishier Jaggermechs now, but I guarantee you it would ruin or make overly powerful more than a few 'Mechs. Eg; the Jenner would be getting free extra armor, and the Victor would never be seen again.