Mavairo, on 15 February 2014 - 06:35 PM, said:
First step: bring back SRMs. Those of us that were around back when SRMs weren't so wonky that you could fire a full 12 of them point blank into someone's chest and see Zero Damage dealt, can probably tell you how much more prevalent brawling was.
Second step: PPCs they shouldn't do Pinpoint Damage Maybe 60 percent of their damage should be dealt to one spot on a given mech and the other 40 percent is spread to surrounding pieces. That's one half the single biggest reason why the HGN and Victor have become the monsters that they are.
Third Step: Jump Jets. There are quite a few things that need to be addressed with Jump Jets. Primarily, is the one we can all agree on. You get far far too much Jump for a single Jump Jet. I'd go so far as to argue that what you get from your first Jump Jet is more like what you should get after 3 jump jets have been equipped. This gives you way way too many tons to play with on the bigger mechs, for far too little opportunity cost.
Second in regard to JJs, is the insane agility boost Heavies, and Assaults gain from using them to assist in their turning ability.
Third, is that there should be some kind of deflection on Descent when it comes to firing. Jump Sniping is not difficult in the slightest to do. Even Laser JJ Sniping is fairly easy to pull off.
1) SRMs are pretty good right now - they could be a little better, but we don't need them "buffed" back to the point where they can punch 90 damage into a Centurion's CT at 50m. Too much of a buff and we just wind up with SRM boats and 2xPPC+2xAC/5 and 2xAC/20 being balance problems, and everything else being that much worse by comparison.
2) Large Lasers can often get 60% of their damage on target (unless the target is insanely fast), so why would I want to spend an extra 2 tons, one critical, and 3 points of heat in order to do 0.6 more damage to my target? The problem isn't that
a PPC or
an autocannon can concentrate damage effectively, it's that a whole lot of autocannons and PPCs can be fired
at once and all hit the same point at the same instant
as though they were a single projectile, because "convergence" never made it into the game.
3) Jump jets are supposed to boost agility, and the jump jets we have in-game don't give half the reach they should from TT stats (30m/JJ). Biggest issue is that rather than "jumping" they're more like "hover" jets, so they're ideal for jump-sniping, but not actually all that great for clearing obstacles. Jets with a higher impulse, shorter duration, and a greater lateral component of their force vector would be a lot more challenging to snipe with, but handier for clearing buildings and canyon walls.
Making jump jets worse for maneuvering and decreasing their range essentially would make them good for
nothing except jump sniping, and the weight penalty for a jump sniper carrying an extra jet or two is on the order of 1-4 tons - easily made up by downgrading an engine by 10-15 rating points and 2-4kph (which doesn't matter an awful lot if you're going to spend most of the match hopping up and down in one spot).