23 replies to this topic

[Dracol]

This idea was just posted in another thread by Koniving. Since closed beta, I hadn't heard this suggestion b4 and thought it warranted a new thread. If it has, please point me to the thread.......

Each Chassis Has An Indepentant Max Armor Value

Koniving goes into the specifics here: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3140099

Here are the highlights of that first half of that post that covers the idea concerning Armor.

Max armor a Mech can equip is based of the stock mech plus a set number. This would replace the current value which all mechs of a certain weight share.

Internal points would remain the same

Example: Locust / Jenner / Cicada

Locust: Stock armor value = 128
Stock armor value +100 = 228
Jenner: Stock armor value = 128
Stock armor value +100 = 228
Cicada: Stock armor value = 137
Stock armor value + 100 = 237

What this would do would give another variable to balance with. A locust, with the same armor value as a jenner, would be able to hold its own equally up until the armor is breached. With the lower internal value, the locust would fall much quicker when internals are exposed.

Highlanders would become more of a glass cannon, while Atlai retain their staying power and Awesomes would have chance with their high stock armor values. Jagger mechs become a long range mech with thin armor, while Phracts retain their brawling ability.

Now, being a long time BTech fan, I understand it goes against the customization rules outlined within it. But, it follows the fluff and spirit of the original mechs we're piloting.

The amount above stock value would have to be set in accordance to what overall estimated time to kill is being sought after. Whether max armor is chassis dependent or variant dependent is another decision that would be required.

Edited by Dracol, 09 February 2014 - 11:03 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

It would be a cool idea, but sometimes generic is better for the makers of the game.

[Dracol]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 February 2014 - 11:03 AM, said:

It would be a cool idea, but sometimes generic is better for the makers of the game.

In general, I agree... but are we not playing the thinking man's shooter?

At the moment, max speed of a mech is determined by variant..... not to far of a step to get to setting max armor by variant

[Koniving]

Edit: Btw, I forgot to say thank you for bringing this to its own thread and public attention. But the original concept was unique armor based on each mech variant (not chassis as a whole but per mech variant)'s stock armor much like engines were originally based on variant's stock).

(One thing: 137 is the Cicada's structure health; the structure health of all 40 ton mechs regardless of what their armor is. 128 is the Cicada A's stock armor. Even though all Locust, Jenner D variant only, and Cicada A variant all have 128 starting and go to 228 after the changes, the Locust has 61 structure, Jenner D has 119, and Cicada has 137. Of course, another 40 ton mech could have 280 armor buff to 380, awful weapons awful speed, and still have 137 structure.)

In the phrase of "general is better," we often complain about one mech outclassing the other or all the mechs being the same. Role warfare was a design pillar that had been abandoned by this game in the name of "being general." Stock-based armor configurations like this would really elaborate on that role warfare. Jagermechs as an example were never, ever meant to brawl. Instead they were long range fire support and anti-air with paper thin armor and had to be protected by other more armored mechs. We just created two roles by that alone. Fire support and protecting ranged assets. And that rule about only lights scouting? Bull. There's brawling light mechs if they could have the armor they were meant to. There's also scouting 55 ton mediums!

Typically in Battletech, the faster mechs or the more powerful mechs tend to have much lighter armor. A fast mech with powerful weapons and terrible armor is the Shadowhawk; the 2D2 has the same armor as a Raven 2x. But it's fast and powerful at long range. The 5M trades the 2D2's highly usable array of hardpoints for a balanced one, manages to keep the speed but for its trade off it gets very high armor. In MWO's system it just gets a nice fat smear of brown.

Some mechs are fast and have great armor but terrible weapons. (Thunderbolt? Though 65 tons its stock armor competes with a Stalker even though the stalker is 20 tons heavier and a class higher) Some mechs have amazing armor and weapons but are absolutely slower than dirt (Hunchback pre-buffs. If the armor was stock + 100, the Hunchback would be not only the best of the 50 tonners, but better than about half of the 55 tonners in MWO right now in terms of armor to include 2 out of 3 Shadowhawks, 2 out of 3 Griffins while being equal to one in armor. The Hunchback on the other hand would be outclassed in armor by both the Kintaro and the Wolverine).

Back to lights though. Let's use a classic favorite. The Urban Mech. 60 rated engine. 30 ton battlemech. With PGI's engine rating limits, you'll never be able to put more than a 115 engine in it. 62.1 kph; 68.3 after speed tweak. Loadout 1 ballistic, 1 small laser. Piece of dirt, right?

Compare to a Spider. 30 tons. Spider armor is universally 112 points. Current max 210 (and thus Urban mech would max at 210 in the current system but still never be faster than 68, while the Spider can go 169 kph). Not fair at all, is it? But let's complete that with stock-based armors.

30 ton mechs, current max armor 210. Structure health 105.
Spider, 112 stock armor. Add 100. New max is 212 (big 2 point gain; woo). 169 top speed with largest engine. Using the 5K, 4 ballistics 1 laser.
Urban mech. 6 tons of armor. That's 192 armor stock. New max is 292 with 105 structure health, 68 kph and a shorter, clunkier figure with high mounted ballistic and energy weapons.

The reason why per variant is so very important is this. Take the Ravens. The "best" Raven, the 3-L, could go 150 kph at its top speed, sport up to 238 armor, and has the best weapons and ECM.
But wait. It started with 161 armor. Better than a Jenner D (making up for its lack of speed compared to the D's current 152 kph and better weaponry, torso twist, turn speed, acceleration...flat out the Jenner D is superior in almost every way except starting armor and ECM). Anyway, 161 armor (119 structure) with armor + 100 = new max of 261. Wait, that's a buff. Actually not as much as you think it might be.

Take the 3-L and compare it to its slower (and at the time 119.6 kph limited 235 engine) sisters. The 2X and the 4X. 119 structure. Decent weaponry but unable to compete with the potential power of the 3-L. No ECM. Inferior acceleration, turning, etc. compared to its newer Liao brother. Instead, what did they get that's better? Armor. 208 for the Raven 2X (that's the same as a Shadowhawk 2D2), and 234 for the Raven 4X. That becomes 308 for the 2X and 334 for the 4X.

Jenner D 119 structure, 128 armor becomes 228 max. 152 kph. Nasty weapons. Better torso twist, better this and that..
Raven 3-L 119 structure, 161 armor becomes 261 max. 150 kph. Easy to leg, weapons comparable to Jenner D, okay twist. ECM.
Raven 2-X. 119 structure, 208 armor becomes 308 max. 119 kph. High energy reliance. One missile port.
Raven 4-X. 119 structure, 234 armor becomes 334 max. 119 kph. Only 2 energy hardpoints, ballistic hardpoints require lots of weight and smaller engine. Armor makes sense; it's a fighter not a scout. Jumpjet capable.
Jenner F 119 structure, 234 armor becomes 334 max, 152 kph, 6 energy hardpoints + other Jenner D traits. Hotter than heck, but has the armor to make up for it.

The Ravens just became a lot more unique and there's now an appetizing reason to try out the 2X and 4X.

Even the Jagers which this hits especially hard will have a new merit; the worst Jagermech (the A) is now the best one in terms of armor.

Meanwhile this allows Awesome 9M and Thunderbolt 9SE -- which can't even equip stock armor values in MWO, to shine. Puts the Awesome above the Victor in armor. Some medium mechs will feel more like heavy mechs. Some heavies will feel like mediums. The Dragon gets a huge buff (as it's 1-C variant couldn't equip even STOCK armor), and overall mechs should feel a lot more unique.

Oh, and that pesky jump sniping Cataphract 3D? It and the 1X are the lowest armored Cataphracts. The 4X, slower than dirt, is the highest armored and no longer outclassed by the Jagermech in brawling. It is however still outclassed by the Jagermech in long ranged support from cover.

Edited by Koniving, 10 February 2014 - 09:54 AM.

[wanderer]

Opens up a really bad can of worms, as being able to uparmor past canonical limits (scaled up as they are for BT) puts things in a bad way.

Consider that they actually tossed the "armor is hardmounted, no changes" rule for Omnis because they didn't want a chassis having the inescapable weak point of armor levels worse than anyone else in the tonnage bracket.

Better to put hardened armor in- it's already canonical for 3050 and trades being able to add more protection for reduced speed and agility. In a game where TTK is already considered too fast by devs, not giving everyone a fair shake for protection is kinda lame. Especially when some variants are fundamentally identical in construction despite different initial armor levels, like the Jenner-D vs. the Jenner-F.

[Dracol]

wanderer, on 09 February 2014 - 02:54 PM, said:

Opens up a really bad can of worms, as being able to uparmor past canonical limits (scaled up as they are for BT) puts things in a bad way.

I agree that upping armor past stock limits is required, hence the suggestion that max armor be based of stock value plus either a set amount or a percentage. You buy a stock mech and you have the option of freeing up tonnage to up your armor.


What the suggestion does do is vary the max armor value between mechs of the same tonnage. As for Time To Kill, the current TTK could be maintained, it would just depend on the amount over stock allowed. Some mech chassis would be easier to kill (ie Jagermech) which would line up with their canonical rolls.

[Satan n stuff]

Koniving, on 09 February 2014 - 12:25 PM, said:

Back to lights though. Let's use a classic favorite. The Urban Mech. 60 rated engine. 30 ton battlemech. With PGI's engine rating limits, you'll never be able to put more than a 115 engine in it. 62.1 kph; 68.3 after speed tweak. Loadout 1 ballistic, 1 small laser. Piece of dirt, right?

Well we'll be getting tonnage limits soon, and while one Urbie does not equal one Spider, three of them are far superior to one Highlander. three mechs with jump jets, a heavy ballistic and an energy weapon would have about twice as much effective firepower as a Highlander. With all three likely running standard engines because at around a 100 engine rating XL engines no longer give a significant weight advantage, they'll be about twice as tough too.

Right now we need every mech to contribute equally to a fight because of bad weight matchmaking. When we get weigh limits bringing an assault will actually cost a team quite a bit, and slow lights such as the Urbie will become an effective counter to them even though they are not very effective against anything other than slow lights one on one.

[TheCaptainJZ]

It sounds like a good way to vary chassis and perhaps even variants more. As we get more mechs, it would help make better distinctions. However, I'd imagine it would also be more difficult to balance and adds more complexity. I feel that the current armor values should be used, but some chassis could have a slightly lower max, say .5 tons or 1 ton depending on it's actual weight. It should be considered a "quirk." It could even vary by variant within a chassis.

Edit to add: Remember, mechs are not likely to ever be rescaled, so it would be disasterous to lower the max too far, nerfing a chassis into uselessness.

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 10 February 2014 - 02:25 AM.

[Matthew Ace]

It's something I would like to see, but rather than past stock limit, certain chassis that carries armor well below the normal limit should have a lower limit.

E.G.
Most Jagermech variants are supposed to be pretty squishy; this would differentiate it further from Catapults
Stalkers may then carry less armor than Awesomes.
Jenner-F being able to have more armor than the Jenner-D/K.

Something needs to be done about TTK though.

Edited by Matthew Ace, 10 February 2014 - 02:36 AM.

[Vidarok]

This is a great idea and anything that can make every mech and its variants unique is something I would support. Maybe there could be a poll? Either way, I fear that mechs such as the Awesome and the Commando will be phased out and forgotten entirely unless we do something like you suggested.

[Joseph Mallan]

Koniving, on 09 February 2014 - 12:25 PM, said:

Edit: Btw, I forgot to say thank you for bringing this to its own thread and public attention).

(One thing: 137 is the Cicada's structure health; the structure health of all 40 ton mechs regardless of what their armor is. 128 is the Cicada A's stock armor. Even though all Locust, Jenner D variant only, and Cicada A variant all have 128 starting and go to 228 after the changes, the Locust has 61 structure, Jenner D has 119, and Cicada has 137. Of course, another 40 ton mech could have 280 armor buff to 380, awful weapons awful speed, and still have 137 structure.)

In the phrase of "general is better," we often complain about one mech outclassing the other or all the mechs being the same. Role warfare was a design pillar that had been abandoned by this game in the name of "being general." Stock-based armor configurations like this would really elaborate on that role warfare. Jagermechs as an example were never, ever meant to brawl. Instead they were long range fire support and anti-air with paper thin armor and had to be protected by other more armored mechs. We just created two roles by that alone. Fire support and protecting ranged assets. And that rule about only lights scouting? Bull. There's brawling light mechs if they could have the armor they were meant to. There's also scouting 55 ton mediums!

Typically in Battletech, the faster mechs or the more powerful mechs tend to have much lighter armor. A fast mech with powerful weapons and terrible armor is the Shadowhawk; the 2D2 has the same armor as a Raven 2x. But it's fast and powerful at long range. The 5M trades the 2D2's highly usable array of hardpoints for a balanced one, manages to keep the speed but for its trade off it gets very high armor. In MWO's system it just gets a nice fat smear of brown.

Some mechs are fast and have great armor but terrible weapons. (Thunderbolt? Though 65 tons its stock armor competes with a Stalker even though the stalker is 20 tons heavier and a class higher) Some mechs have amazing armor and weapons but are absolutely slower than dirt (Hunchback pre-buffs. If the armor was stock + 100, the Hunchback would be not only the best of the 50 tonners, but better than about half of the 55 tonners in MWO right now in terms of armor to include 2 out of 3 Shadowhawks, 2 out of 3 Griffins while being equal to one in armor. The Hunchback on the other hand would be outclassed in armor by both the Kintaro and the Wolverine).

Back to lights though. Let's use a classic favorite. The Urban Mech. 60 rated engine. 30 ton battlemech. With PGI's engine rating limits, you'll never be able to put more than a 115 engine in it. 62.1 kph; 68.3 after speed tweak. Loadout 1 ballistic, 1 small laser. Piece of dirt, right?

Compare to a Spider. 30 tons. Spider armor is universally 112 points. Current max 210 (and thus Urban mech would max at 210 in the current system but still never be faster than 68, while the Spider can go 169 kph). Not fair at all, is it? But let's complete that with stock-based armors.

30 ton mechs, current max armor 210. Structure health 105.
Spider, 112 stock armor. Add 100. New max is 212 (big 2 point gain; woo). 169 top speed with largest engine. Using the 5K, 4 ballistics 1 laser.
Urban mech. 6 tons of armor. That's 192 armor stock. New max is 292 with 105 structure health, 68 kph and a shorter, clunkier figure with high mounted ballistic and energy weapons.

The reason why per variant is so very important is this. Take the Ravens. The "best" Raven, the 3-L, could go 150 kph at its top speed, sport up to 238 armor, and has the best weapons and ECM.
But wait. It started with 161 armor. Better than a Jenner D (making up for its lack of speed compared to the D's current 152 kph and better weaponry, torso twist, turn speed, acceleration...flat out the Jenner D is superior in almost every way except starting armor and ECM). Anyway, 161 armor (119 structure) with armor + 100 = new max of 261. Wait, that's a buff. Actually not as much as you think it might be.

Take the 3-L and compare it to its slower (and at the time 119.6 kph limited 235 engine) sisters. The 2X and the 4X. 119 structure. Decent weaponry but unable to compete with the potential power of the 3-L. No ECM. Inferior acceleration, turning, etc. compared to its newer Liao brother. Instead, what did they get that's better? Armor. 208 for the Raven 2X (that's the same as a Shadowhawk 2D2), and 234 for the Raven 4X. That becomes 308 for the 2X and 334 for the 4X.

Jenner D 119 structure, 128 armor becomes 228 max. 152 kph. Nasty weapons. Better torso twist, better this and that..
Raven 3-L 119 structure, 161 armor becomes 261 max. 150 kph. Easy to leg, weapons comparable to Jenner D, okay twist. ECM.
Raven 2-X. 119 structure, 208 armor becomes 308 max. 119 kph. High energy reliance. One missile port.
Raven 4-X. 119 structure, 234 armor becomes 334 max. 119 kph. Only 2 energy hardpoints, ballistic hardpoints require lots of weight and smaller engine. Armor makes sense; it's a fighter not a scout. Jumpjet capable.
Jenner F 119 structure, 234 armor becomes 334 max, 152 kph, 6 energy hardpoints + other Jenner D traits. Hotter than heck, but has the armor to make up for it.

The Ravens just became a lot more unique and there's now an appetizing reason to try out the 2X and 4X.

Even the Jagers which this hits especially hard will have a new merit; the worst Jagermech (the A) is now the best one in terms of armor.

Meanwhile this allows Awesome 9M and Thunderbolt 9SE -- which can't even equip stock armor values in MWO, to shine. Puts the Awesome above the Victor in armor. Some medium mechs will feel more like heavy mechs. Some heavies will feel like mediums. The Dragon gets a huge buff (as it's 1-C variant couldn't equip even STOCK armor), and overall mechs should feel a lot more unique.

Oh, and that pesky jump sniping Cataphract 3D? It and the 1X are the lowest armored Cataphracts. The 4X, slower than dirt, is the highest armored and no longer outclassed by the Jagermech in brawling. It is however still outclassed by the Jagermech in long ranged support from cover.

Role warfare was abandoned my the players because all they want to do is what they want to do.
Role Fire Support= Ruined cause, "I can brawl" complaints.
Sniper= Ruined cause "I can't brawl" complaint
Scouting= Helps fire support, gets little XP for being done correctly... k this is PGIs fault.
Brawling=This is the only role most want to have and is the most rewarded role.

[Noesis]

Doesn't include ideas for increased ammo, heat needs with more weapons fire needed.

Doesn't account for further increasing the attractiveness of FLD pinpoint accuracy where this can be applied to specific hit boxes with more confidence over other weapons that can spread damage.

As a result simply increasing armour on its own would simply create further imbalances to the current game.

[Koniving]

Noesis, on 10 February 2014 - 06:46 AM, said:

Doesn't include ideas for increased ammo, heat needs with more weapons fire needed.

Doesn't account for further increasing the attractiveness of FLD pinpoint accuracy where this can be applied to specific hit boxes with more confidence over other weapons that can spread damage.

As a result simply increasing armour on its own would simply create further imbalances to the current game.

This is an a mech diversifying armor concern. It's not a universal balancer. You of all people should know it's not meant to address every facet of balance. But here you go, it's covered.

Spoiler

Ammo, covered in the past. We actually have too much ammo, allowing for mechs with overpowered weapons to be far too fast. Ammunition-heavy mechs in Battletech and past mechwarrior games were very, very slow, lumbering pieces of dirt but insanely deadly and never had heat issues. But I'm not taking that away from anyone. Keeping ammo the same, as the additional armor for non-ammo dependant mechs means more weight. Stock + 100 on ammo-dependant mechs actually brings their armor down, freeing up weight to carry more ammo. Your problem's solved. But if not convinced then more below.

Multi-shot ideas covered in the past. Ammo allotments: Burst fire weapons, a Crusher Super Heavy Cannon (a 10 shot AC/20). 10 shots = 1 trigger pull = 1 use = 7 uses per ton in MWO's current system. Assuming the Deathgiver Atlas 15 shot AC/20 is fully automatic (meaning stretched across 4 seconds with 0.267 seconds between [deemed impossible to do this way due to server limits but used as an example) then counter is adjusted so that 15 shots = 1 damage rating use = "1" of 7 uses = (15*7 = 105 shots = 7 damage ratings = 7 "uses" of a burst fire weapon = even).

There is no need to increase ammo. We have too much ammo. We have a 100% reliance on ammo based weapons. The only way to stop boating with ammo based weapons is to not have too much ammo per ton. Since that will not change, and with this addition to armor, we will see more mixed loadouts. Or we'll see some mechs with lots more free tonnage load up on even more tons of ammo (Jagermechs) and/or standard engines. Holy crap; a Jager with a standard engine AND big guns and lore-friendly thin armor. Terrifying, isn't it? Amazing what a simple change will do.

Increasing ammo will only make the problems we already have much worse.

PGI, as you know, will not fix pinpoint accuracy.

• They introduced Armlock which allows for pinpoint accuracy at any moment you want it. This in the face of being told things are too pinpoint back when you couldn't perfectly align your arms and torso.
  
• They removed delayed convergence entirely for instant convergence.
  
• They will not use cone of accuracy.
  
• They will not use recoil.
  
• They will not use multi-shot ACs despite how single shot ones spit in the face of the lore.
  
• They will not use the third person crosshair bounce with mech movement for first person which would basically mean if you move fast you can't hit anything without using a high bit of skill to time your shots with the crosshair being where you want it.
  
• Trying to get PGI to get its head out of its rear to fix pinpoint is a futile effort and not worth wasting any more of my breath, I've been on it for a year and a half.

If you want change to that, do something. But don't complain that an idea to diversify and fix the game doesn't address things it's not meant to address. Check out Bill's targeting computer idea. Btw, for all of his efforts he's now Homeless Bill. Kind of tells you how far he got with it, even with the support of almost the entire fan-base. PGI is not interested in fixing pinpoint.

--------

Far as being able to allocate armor to interesting points of the mech, it'd be great but we both know that PGI will not do this. The concept of doing that has been given to PGI in closed beta and turned down back then and in multiple ATD. "We do not feel it is necessary and would create an imbalance to the game. Having specific weak points adds a unique flavor and strategy to dealing with each mech." This of course was back when an Atlas's cockpit was its entire head and part of its shoulders and had a total of 9 points of armor and 4.5 internal structure and a repair bill of something like 200,000 cbills. PGI learned that lesson, but still hasn't given any flavor to armor allocation because it would nerf other locations.

It would be nice. And if PGI cares to do it they will figure out their own way. Remember that PGI doesn't ever do anything exactly as suggested. Example: Gauss Rifles. Suggestion was a delay in firing PPCs and ER PPCs to simulate them charging the energy and firing. What do we get? Charged Gauss Rifles. Ouch.

Carrion Crows gives an example of intelligent armor design. Instead, we get Battlemech bikinis and slight adjustments that are nothing like what was specifically and painstaking demonstrated.

The point is the effort would be wasted. They know what areas physically look like they could benefit from such ideas. Side torsos on Jagers. Centurion's arm. Awesome's Arms; which should have the tops of the shoulders attached and also benefiting from said additional arm armor. Hunchback's Hunch; but only on the ones with Hunches that cannot be removed. Dragon's center torso since they refuse to use CarrionCrow's much more intelligent idea. Quickdraw, Shadowhawk, and Raven's legs. Jenner's CT; again because no one took CarrionCrow's painstakingly made hitboxes seriously and used them. The list could go on and on and it's a wasted effort. It genuinely and truly is.

Oh don't forget the adjustment to Hunchback's fuel tank cylinder thing (assuming ammo case). When shot from the front, it counts as a rear torso hit. I've brought this up several times and even pointed it out as a weakness that players can exploit when faced against a superior Hunchback. And by this I don't mean as a fix; I mean as something that needs to be fixed. It's an on-going hitbox design that was never addressed. Ain't nothing done yet. The Hunchback is the only such mech with any such weakness; making the LT easier to destroy than the RT.

My point is that if an idea isn't simple PGI won't bother.
-----------
Increasing armor would NOT create imbalance in the game. After all, it doesn't just increase armor. It does armor based on the mech's intended stock value + a set even value across all mechs. Interestingly enough, this universally increases all of the bad mechs armor quite a bit, and reduces the overpowered, pinpoint, ballistic-heavy mechs armors to much lower points.

Those lower amounts of armor mean more free weight, meaning more tonnage to use towards carrying more tons of ammo. The reduced use of AC/20s would universally help balance out the game. They will become death from afar, where players can then use tactics to get close and kill said overpowered pieces of dirt. Meanwhile, those mechs with super high firepower and damage can call upon their team for escorts, and like closed beta they will get those escorts because victory will finally depend upon the team that works together. And not the team with the premade of meta b.s.

This would also upturn the entire meta; causing all of those players to go back to the drawing board. Metas will be varied. Some will want mechs for tanking ability; as some mechs will be able to out-tank others even if they can't get good firepower going. For example, a Hunchback would become a preferred base defender in the medium class. A Kintaro would become an intended striker. Dragons, now with stock-based values, have more armor than Catapults, and would again have a purpose. Awesomes would be able to serve as damage tanks as it turns out stock values are higher than those of Stalkers. Victors get off the freaking front line and play more of a support role.

Paul's nerf gun is on Victors for being overpowered. This automatically removes overpoweredness without nerfing them, by putting them back as intended by stock values.

There's no need for increases to heat, as already explained we can do more than 3 times the heat possible in MW3 and yet, MW3 was a LOT more balanced than MWO. To actually balance the heat limits for battlemechs needs to be reduced (and then, the armor point increase for new maximums could be something like 30 instead of 100). Battlemechs firing the way we do would overheat and die in less than 10 seconds in MW3. Heat management is everything and is important in the game. This is what made autocannons attractive when they were fully automatic machine guns loaded with pepper spray requiring 10 seconds of repeated use to deal 20 damage even at 14 tons. Here, autocannons will never be that weak.

In Mechwarrior 3 the game still had overpowered lasers -- which did less damage than MWO's lasers -- and generated more heat than MWO's lasers -- and a threshold limit of 30 instead of MWO's standard heatsink minimum of 40 (50 for mastered mech) and current Inner Sphere maximum of 92 point something (mastered mech) and the Clan's current maximum in this imbalanced, rising threshold system of 120+ (mastered mech). These maximums are still accounting for the need to carry two ER PPCs. Note that 15 is required to fire one ER PPC without shutting down. 120+ means 6 ER PPCs and NOT shutting down (without ghost heat; created to address this super high ever increasing rising threshold b.s. that PGI did that created the imbalance in the first place).

TL;DR. Good sir. I realize you like to alpha strike and fire immense amounts of pinpoint weapons, but the only way to address it is to not make it worse by allowing for alpha strikes and increasing the ammo for pinpoint weapons. Instead, create in stages, ways to address said problem indirectly when PGI refuses to address said problem directly.

Your needs have been addressed in the spoiler above.

Edited by Koniving, 10 February 2014 - 07:57 AM.

[Koniving]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 February 2014 - 03:28 AM, said:

Role warfare was abandoned my the players because all they want to do is what they want to do.
Role Fire Support= Ruined cause, "I can brawl" complaints.
Sniper= Ruined cause "I can't brawl" complaint
Scouting= Helps fire support, gets little XP for being done correctly... k this is PGIs fault.
Brawling=This is the only role most want to have and is the most rewarded role.

Fire support -- you can brawl in a mech that wasn't meant to brawl. Armor allocation is the root cause. Before the Jagermech came out, Zhizhu members were deciding which ones would get it because while not everyone liked the idea of fire support, everyone knew that the mech would, should, could have paper thin armor. But then it had the same armor as a catapult, more than a Dragon, and everyone loaded twin AC/20s and brawled. There were those who loved the idea of fire support; they loaded 6 AC/2s and had a ball while being slow with paper thin armor. And they were punished by PGI with "Heat Scale" aka Ghost Heat. Completely unlisted, denied initially, and later said "this was intentional but not working properly." The fix, made it even worse.

Sniper= These still exist. It's the poptart sniper that got kinda ruined and turned into poptart brawler.

Scouting= Indeed. But to make it worse, all light mechs of a superior chassis are created equal in armor when they are NOT equal in speed, ability, or anything else. There's enough armor to brawl in the slowest 35 ton mech against Atlases and WIN. (I do this routinely with a Raven 4x and an AC/20). But, you can take that same amount of armor, put it on the fastest 35 ton mech, and outclass everything. Why bother scouting? What's the point when your armor is that thick on the 35 ton mechs that are meant to have much thinner armor but have jumpjets and high firepower or ECM which were originally intended to make up for a now imaginary lack of armor?

Brawling= Most people complain this role can't exist because snipers. Or because mechs intended to brawl cannot since they cannot even equip stock armor. Thunderbolt 9SE, Dragon 1-C, and there's a few other mechs that have left over weight that's exactly enough to put on armor. When investigated, their total armor weight does not equal the stated armor weight on stock sheets.

Specifically the Dragon 1-C has enough left over for exactly 10 points of armor intended to be part of the stock armor and the weight difference of not being able to put on that armor when compared with the stock mech sheet would total its intended stock value of armor. Can't do it; maximum setting won't allow it. Check 'em.

Instead, brawling exists for the mechs that weren't supposed to do it and thus have immense firepower that they can bring to fruit and just literally slaughter things in seconds at close range with immense armor that they're not supposed to have; creating a meta and an imbalance never before seen in mechwarrior history.

Yes, players are at fault for exploiting bad design decisions. But what else can they do? We have to work with what the game gives us. If the game is designed and balanced better; if choices are given, then players will make choices. If there is no choice, there can be no choices made everyone must conform.

Edited by Koniving, 10 February 2014 - 08:13 AM.

[Zyllos]

I have kinda liked the idea that a Hunchback possibly had more armor in the Right Torso than say, a Centurion or Trebuchet, even for maximums.

It doesn't really fly in the face of the lore as the total value would stay the same. Most likely, the arms of the Hunchback would have a much smaller maximum (look at how skinny they are) so that the torso sections would have a higher value.

But, the problem with this is that then most likely, any mech that moved armor values from arms/legs into torso sections would immediately become popular due to the meta.

[Koniving]

Satan n stuff, on 10 February 2014 - 02:07 AM, said:

Right now we need every mech to contribute equally to a fight because of bad weight matchmaking. When we get weigh limits bringing an assault will actually cost a team quite a bit, and slow lights such as the Urbie will become an effective counter to them even though they are not very effective against anything other than slow lights one on one.

When weight limits comes, a Spider will always be superior to a Urban mech. The Urban mech cannot contribute evenly if it's one benefiting factor is completely removed from it to be "even" with the Spider. The Urban mech is a slow one-shot-dead piece of dirt with the current limits. With the stock+100, unlike the Spider who only survives while moving, the Urban mech will be able to tank two shots before dying.

Remember, with how PGI does engine limits the Urban mech by design would have a cap of 60-ish kph. With the same armor as a spider going 150+. If armor remains "even", then the Urban mech is dead on arrival.

Put a standard 115 engine (the urban mech's max according to how PGI does engine ratings) in a Spider, grab AC/10 and small laser, and tell me how you do. Without more armor than a spider can carry, say Urbanmech's stock + 100, you won't have a chance.

[Macksheen]

Simpler would be to just apply each variant with its own max armor - not the whole chassis, but add in armor as one of those things that varies chassis. This would allow you to do one more additional lever to make some of those under-used chassis more popular.

Don't hit everything - hit a few. It doesn't need to be a big swing to make a meta shift in just about any game.

[Koniving]

Matthew Ace, on 10 February 2014 - 02:36 AM, said:

It's something I would like to see, but rather than past stock limit, certain chassis that carries armor well below the normal limit should have a lower limit.

E.G.
Most Jagermech variants are supposed to be pretty squishy; this would differentiate it further from Catapults
Stalkers may then carry less armor than Awesomes.
Jenner-F being able to have more armor than the Jenner-D/K.

The actual idea given accomplishes exactly this. Stock + 100 per variant. Jenner F would have more armor than the D/K. Raven 4X would have the most armor of the Ravens while the 3-L would have the least.

Everything is simply stock + 100 = new maximum.

Ideally, this would come with a reset of the engine buffs, so that while certain mechs just became a lot harder to kill (the Hunchback), it'd go back to its old engine limits. Thus, while Hunchbacks are harder to kill than 2 of the 3 Shadowhawks, the 2 shadowhawk variants that are easier to kill are also considerably faster and the last Shadowhawk variant that is harder to kill and faster than the Hunchback actually already has the worst hardpoints, twist, acceleration, etc.

Time to kill, however, ideally should be increased. Most mechs don't last as long as they do in tabletop or even Mechwarrior 3 and being one-shotted sucks.

Macksheen, on 10 February 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:

Simpler would be to just apply each variant with its own max armor - not the whole chassis, but add in armor as one of those things that varies chassis. This would allow you to do one more additional lever to make some of those under-used chassis more popular.

(It's mis-titled by Dracol. My original idea is by Variant of said chassis)

[Noesis]

Really if anything I'm a proponent of managed build arrangements and would welcome aforementioned changes to reduce cap and increase dissipation since this has been an overall adjustment to MWO that favours the alpha build.

Adding Ammo for increased firing to increases in armour is readily done at the tonnage levels an amounts. Yet with heat this is not so the case due to this lack of dissipation and yet armour increases asking for longevity to the game.

Pinpoint FLD already provides the current Meta confidence at range, so applying more armour will make the idea of focus firing on specific locations with confidence as opposed to utilising weapons that have more spread will make pinpoint accuracy more valuable as a result. I realise the relative nature of this but at the same time the application of weapons is still paramount to confidence with their use.

As an example

AC5, 5 damage, Cooldown 1.5, heat 1.0. DPS 3.33. HPS 0.67. Ammo/T 30.
ML, 5 damage (on paper), cooldown 4, heat 4, DPS 1.25 HPS 1.00

+30 armour to CT as an example:

AC5 would take 6 extra shots, take 9s longer, for an additional 6 heat.
ML would take the same additional shots, take 24s longer and generate an additional 24 heat during this time.

So the AC5 realistically will be manageable with 5 extra shots. But the ML would need to manage an additional 24 heat in this time and take much longer to do this.

---

Lets marry "DPS" and therefore use a similar or comparable time taken to destroy 30 damage.

AC20 vs 4 ML (again using potential maximum values as opposed to applied damage found after shooting mechanics).

Both need 2 additional shots for 30 damage, Again insignificant ammo increase for the AC20 or other ACs as this ramps up.

Heat generated in two strikes:

AC20: 12
2 ERPPC: 60
2 PPC: 40
4 ML: 32

This means that the 4 ML would need to manage and additional 32 heat, ERPPC 60, PPCs 40 in 8s. This would be in addition to the heat generated to completely remove the existing armour. Not seeing any problems with heat management yet or an imbalance?

So lets look at this in real terms:

Armour CT for say an atlas 100 (original) + 30 = 130

4 AC5, 2 AC10, AC20, 2 ERPPC, 2 PPC, 4 ML all take about the same equivalent 7 shots as opposed to 5 before. Yet the ammo increase is barely noticeable. 2/7, 8/30 about 1/4 addition of a ton.

But lets compare the amount of heat to be managed in these times.

Overall heat before:

4 AC5: 20, Time: 7.5s.
2 AC10: 30, Time: 12.5s
AC20: 30, Time: 20s
2 ERPPC: 150, Time 20s
2 PPC: 100, Time 20s
4 ML: 80, Time 20s

Overall heat after:

4 AC5: 28, Time: 10.5s
2 AC10: 42, Time: 17.5s
AC20: 42, Time: 28s
2 ERPPC: 210, Time: 28s
2 PPC: 140, Time: 28s
4 ML: 112, Time: 28s

So we can see that ACs would get a quicker time to resolve similar damage. Appreciate that 4 AC5s would be compensated by tonnage but even just looking at 2 AC5s and doubling the time to 21s this still manages to apply the required damage much faster than other weapons in this time. This seems fair of course for this advantage applied to ACs. But would obviously mean that they make the more rapid choice to killing. And the increases in time thus more affecting the AC20 and energy arrangements who apply the same equivalent damage over the same period.

8 additional heat as opposed to 32 additional heat in 8 seconds also means that the energy weapons would need 4 times as much HS to manage the "additional" heat increase from this change for the same time.

In fact using the idea of 10 DHS, 15 DHS and 20 DHS

Which equates to:

10 * 0.2 = 2 dissipation / sec
10 * 0.2 + 5 * 0.14 = 2.7
10 * 0.2 + 10 * 0.14 = 3.14

the comparable time to dissipate for the heat is:

Before:

4 AC5: 20 heat = 10s, 7.4s, 6.4s
2 AC10: 30 = 15s, 11.1s, 9.5s
AC20: 30 = 15s, 11.1s, 9.5s
2 ERPPC: 150 = 75s, 55s, 47s
2 PPC: 100 = 50s, 37s, 31.8s
4 ML: 80 = 40s, 29.6s, 25s

After:

4 AC5: 28 = 14s, 10.37s, 8.91s
2 AC10: 42 = 21s, 15.5s, 13.3s
AC20: 42 = 21s, 15.5s, 13.3s
2 ERPPC: 210 = 105s, 77.7s, 66.9s
2 PPC: 140 = 70s, 51.8s, 44.6s
4 ML: 112 = 56s, 41.5s, 35.7s

All of these incuring a similar relative increase as expected by about 40%. But the magnitudes of further time actually more realistic to the management of these arrangements. E.g for the ACs we are looking at a less than 10s increase for even minimal heat sink application and the magnitudes of overall heat to manage significantly less. Yet the overall increase for energy weapons more with heat as expected since they generate more heat per shot and for more HPS.

Thus the lack of increasing dissipation with DHS or effectivetly not lowering heat generation on more heat dependant weapons would cause an imblance. Otherwise Ballistics would have faster execution, better balancing mechanics with a few shots to be concerned with as opposed to the extra heat issues for dissipation. And essentially have much better longevity than they do now in comparison to heat dependant weapons. This is before considering their range and FLD pinpoint confidence.

[Macksheen]

Koniving, on 10 February 2014 - 09:39 AM, said:

The actual idea given accomplishes exactly this. Stock + 100 per variant. Jenner F would have more armor than the D/K. Raven 4X would have the most armor of the Ravens while the 3-L would have the least.

Everything is simply stock + 100 = new maximum.

Ideally, this would come with a reset of the engine buffs, so that while certain mechs just became a lot harder to kill (the Hunchback), it'd go back to its old engine limits. Thus, while Hunchbacks are harder to kill than 2 of the 3 Shadowhawks, the 2 shadowhawk variants that are easier to kill are also considerably faster and the last Shadowhawk variant that is harder to kill and faster than the Hunchback actually already has the worst hardpoints, twist, acceleration, etc.

Time to kill, however, ideally should be increased. Most mechs don't last as long as they do in tabletop or even Mechwarrior 3 and being one-shotted sucks.



(It's mis-titled by Dracol. My original idea is by Variant of said chassis)

I'd love to see something like "heat efficiency" basically giving a free heat buff to underused / hated mechs as well.

It doesn't take much to introduce something that is both fun flavor, but also enabling of greater variety.