404 replies to this topic

[Sandpit]

Eldagore, on 23 February 2014 - 08:45 PM, said:

I also think they should drop the max range from 3x to 2x,

That part I agree with and like but don't care for the rest.

[FactorlanP]

Khobai, on 23 February 2014 - 04:19 PM, said:

All the devs have said is that mechs die faster than theyd like and that theyve considered increasing internal structure.

God I hope they don't do that...

Increasing armor or internal structure will do NOTHING to change the fact that if you are serious, you have to boat front loaded pinpoint damage weapons.

[Zordicron]

FactorlanP, on 23 February 2014 - 09:04 PM, said:

God I hope they don't do that...

Increasing armor or internal structure will do NOTHING to change the fact that if you are serious, you have to boat front loaded pinpoint damage weapons.

I agree, i think it would magnify the issue. Or at least, create further seperation in aiming skill or whatever. With current ELO and MM system, where I get put into a match with trial mech pilots i can only imagine the reaction a new player would have as veterans lumped in because MM suxx core them before they can do 15% dmg to a mech.

[Sandpit]

FactorlanP, on 23 February 2014 - 09:04 PM, said:

God I hope they don't do that...

Increasing armor or internal structure will do NOTHING to change the fact that if you are serious, you have to boat front loaded pinpoint damage weapons.

All it would do is prolong the same outcome. Increasing armor rates (AGAIN) isn't going to change anything

[FactorlanP]

Sandpit, on 23 February 2014 - 09:40 PM, said:

All it would do is prolong the same outcome. Increasing armor rates (AGAIN) isn't going to change anything

Exactly... There are a multitude of better options...

I must admit that I am concerned that they will either do this, because it is easy, or come up with something sooo convoluted and confusing that it makes Ghost Heat look user friendly...

Edited by FactorlanP, 23 February 2014 - 09:43 PM.

[Deathsani]

I think that eldagore share the same opinion, but I can understand why people wouldn't like it. This would also not solve the issue of the ac5's prevalence as it would rather often be on platforms that wouldn't require multiple shots.

I think it is at least worth a try. If only they would use there test server to do more than test things they are going to implement anyway.

[Sandpit]

FactorlanP, on 23 February 2014 - 09:43 PM, said:

Exactly... There are a multitude of better options...

I must admit that I am concerned that they will either do this, because it is easy, or come up with something sooo convoluted and confusing that it makes Ghost Heat look user friendly...

Given what I've seen in their responses to what I consider the doom and gloom and wail and flail crowds I don't think we'll be seeing it. I think they're just about fed up with the nerf warrior attitude of some just as some of the players are. You can only hit the easy button so many times before the game is too watered down to be fun anymore for anyone but the "I wants 230248956406 cbills per match and free mech bay" crowd.

[Deathsani]

I think that reducing the power, or adding armor would only prolong the mindless torso shooting that persists as a result of the current meta. I think, like most of you here, that a substantial change the in the distribution of damage will be required to add flavor to builds and more skill to combat.

[FactorlanP]

Sandpit, on 23 February 2014 - 09:55 PM, said:

Given what I've seen in their responses to what I consider the doom and gloom and wail and flail crowds I don't think we'll be seeing it. I think they're just about fed up with the nerf warrior attitude of some just as some of the players are. You can only hit the easy button so many times before the game is too watered down to be fun anymore for anyone but the "I wants 230248956406 cbills per match and free mech bay" crowd.

I wish I had your optimism... Or pessimism?

I'm not sure.

I wish that I could believe that PGI is going to make the best decisions to improve this game...

Man that's just more faith than I have to pass out right now.

[Sandpit]

FactorlanP, on 23 February 2014 - 10:04 PM, said:

I wish I had your optimism... Or pessimism?

I'm not sure.

I wish that I could believe that PGI is going to make the best decisions to improve this game...

Man that's just more faith than I have to pass out right now.

I think they do make adjustments based on the majority. I just think that some of us and our ideas and personal experiences aren't what the majority of players experience.

[FactorlanP]

Sandpit, on 23 February 2014 - 10:10 PM, said:

I think they do make adjustments based on the majority. I just think that some of us and our ideas and personal experiences aren't what the majority of players experience.

The majority?!

Heck no, thank you very much...

[Galenit]

Khobai, on 23 February 2014 - 04:19 PM, said:

All the devs have said is that mechs die faster than theyd like and that theyve considered increasing internal structure. They've also vaguely referenced pilot modules that will increase mech survivability.

Sounds like them for me ...

... another stone on the road to p2w.

[Matthew Ace]

Eldagore, on 23 February 2014 - 08:45 PM, said:

Here is what I have been rehashing time and again for a year:

Ballistics should work like missile tubes. You have a hard point, and then you have a "tube count" or in this case, calibre or some such. What it does:

makes each chassis, or variant even, customizable by the devs as to "how big" a gun they can carry in the hardpoints, without removing the ability to equip whatever you want.

most extreme example: LRM20 in a NARC tube. You can do it. It will fire one missile at a time. I liken this to AC20 in a MG mount. Not 20 "pellets", but maybe 10. SO in a MG mount:

AC2, one shot
AC5, two shots(round up dmg to 2.5 for the one oddball)
AC10 5 shots
AC20, 10 shots

With the additional time to fire affecting cooldown timer, like the LRM20 NARC tube.

Gauss remains, because cooldown is longer, it blows up, it weighs a ton, and charge up mechanic. Any of these could be easily adjusted(mostly charge time or cooldown though) if suddenly the gauss becomes OP to all other ballistic. Unlikely to me, as the tonnage is unfeasable to boat them.

Chassis examples

K2- well it WAS supposed to be MG mounts in side torsos. As it would be disruptive to players now to totally rehash it, it could simply have a max calibre of 10 added, so the AC20 would fire 2 shots. Or 5 maybe so an AC20 would fire 4 shots.

n00b tube AC40 jagers: max calibre 5 or 10, suddenly AC40 isnt pinpoint instakill.

YLW, max 20. It was designed that way, hence the actuator missing.

basically, you could set up each chassis to have max put on them so they dont break cannon to far, and also to avoid or restrict pinpoint dmg on mechs that can easily abuse it. It would also allow people to maintain freedom to loadout how they want, though certain things might be suboptimal, but if it is ok for missiles, its ok for ballistics IMO.

I also think they should drop the max range from 3x to 2x, but that should be after the above is put in to see the effect. Might be moot if it breaks up pinpoint dmg enough.

I like this a lot. I have the same idea but you beat me to it. You should consider starting a new topic.

[Pestilens]

the problem with mechs dying too fast is that they are using tabletop game damage numbers in a real-time system. Those numbers in battletech were for 10 seconds worth of engagement. As is the AC/2 had better DPS than the AC/10. There's also a lot of players who play very recklessly and get themselves killed very quickly, including myself.

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 23 February 2014 - 03:23 PM, said:

There's two major issues with instant-damage weapons like the ACs and PPCs, and both of them are caused by its damage mechanic:

1. All damage to one location, always. There's no spread at all, which all other weapon types have. Combine this with out perfect convergence and you get a damage mechanic that breaks the armour system (and was a major contributor to why they had to double armour and IS). You cannot twist to spread the damage around; if you get hit you're going to take all damage to one location.

You see it as a problem, I see it as pretty realistic. AC2 has to spray a lot of Depleted Uranium to equal the sledgehammer strike of a AC20. You quoted the latest CBT book that tries to describe AC fire and it was worded in such a fashion that MWO ACs are ALL AC20s presently. They all throw X amount of damage in Y amount of time. So what we have in game presently is 4 AC20 of varying mass.

Quote

2. No need to face your enemy for more than an instant. For most of the other weapons you need to face your enemy for a prolonged period of time to do damage, whether it's for the beam duration of lasers or the lock-on time of SSRMs and LRMs, or even the continuous stream of MG bullets, you have to actively make a choice whether to attack or defend. Not so with ACs and PPCs; you just twist in and click, and then you're free to defend and maneuver for the rest of the cooldown.

This is not a bad thing for the Shooter. Not everyone wants to spray and pray.

Quote

These two issues combine to make ACs and PPCs simply too effective in both offensive capability and defensive. Not only can you attack more effectively with ACs and PPCs, you can defend more effectively as well.

It's all very well to want weapon types to be unique. That's a laudable goal, but you're doing it wrong if one weapon type's uniqueness makes it clearly superior to the other weapon systems - which is the case with ACs and PPCs.

The easiest and least disruptive on other game mechanics way of rectifying this situation is to make ACs and PPCs not instant-damage; and the preferred method is burst-fire, since that has a very solid grounding in BattleTech lore.

So instead of making the "better" weapon worse, make the lesser weapons better. Shorten Beam duration for lasers to 0.75-0.5 seconds. Missiles... Well not having to twist is a good thing and since LRMs can be launched at a target sight unseen it is not a big negative.

And a reduction of Max range for ACs would be a good thing.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 24 February 2014 - 03:21 AM.

[Willard Phule]

Seems to me that the easiest fix is what they used back in MW4.

MW4 was when they introduced the whole "hardpoint" concept, but each hardpoint had a slot limitation.

You don't want people running around in a dual gauss meta build? Ok, limit the hardpoints to X number of slots (less than a gauss uses). You don't want them using Dual AC20s? Again...lower the slots. Too easy.

Works pretty much for every weapon system....even missiles. Just set Artemis to take an additional, non-hardpoint slot attached to the hardpoint....sort of like when XL engines go to the side torsos. Again, too easy.

And it almost (ALMOST) makes sense from and old-school TT point of view, too. If someone bought a stock mech that had, say, an ERPPC in it but didn't like the heat....they could swap it out for pretty much any other energy weapon because it would fit in the space made by removing it.

The reverse wouldn't be true, however. If you've got a ML sitting somewhere and you yank it out, there's no way you're going to be able to pound a PPC into the slot.

Edited by Willard Phule, 24 February 2014 - 04:35 AM.

[mike29tw]

FactorlanP, on 23 February 2014 - 09:04 PM, said:

God I hope they don't do that...

Increasing armor or internal structure will do NOTHING to change the fact that if you are serious, you have to boat front loaded pinpoint damage weapons.

100% agreed. Every weapon that killed faster before would still kill faster after further increasing armor or internal structure.

[Mcgral18]

Sandpit, on 23 February 2014 - 09:55 PM, said:

Given what I've seen in their responses to what I consider the doom and gloom and wail and flail crowds I don't think we'll be seeing it. I think they're just about fed up with the nerf warrior attitude of some just as some of the players are. You can only hit the easy button so many times before the game is too watered down to be fun anymore for anyone but the "I wants 230248956406 cbills per match and free mech bay" crowd.

Just remember, the nerf crowd has math on their side. AC20, 20 damage in 20 seconds, not 60. Or, 30 with doubled armor. That's reasonable enough, but the fact it's all pinpoint makes the imbalance.

PPC is in the same boat, 1.5 times as effective, pinpoint. The LPL though has a total recycle of 3.85 and 10.6 damage in that time, so 31.8 damage in 10 seconds, or 15.9 TT equivalent, up from 9. That's 1.7 times more effective... Cooler and more damage than the PPCs....why aren't we nerfing the heck out of them?! Oh right...they have a built in mechanic to spread the damage. And less range.

The Devs want longer TTKs, so buffing weapons won't be effective in doing that. Make one weapon a benchmark and work from there. No, don't make them equal, but don't make them useless when compared to others.

[Trauglodyte]

Mcgral18, on 23 February 2014 - 04:14 PM, said:

If they would increase the cooldown to 5 or 6, they would still hurt but would no longer be a choice for brawling. Why does the longest cooldown in the game have to be 4 seconds? (.75 charge doesn't really count) The fact weapons are doing more damage than the 2x armor can handle is the biggest hurdle for TTK, second being frontloaded VS DoT.

Increasing cooldowns slightly for long range weapons would be a start to making a place for brawling weapons. Instead of them being a Jack of all trades.

Ballistics don't even need to be burst weapons, just halve the damage and double the refire, same (way too high) DPS, but much less frontloaded, so it'll be spread out more. Increase ammo, halve heat and decrease impulse of course, but it'd be a start.

Technically speaking, the LRM20 is the longest cool down weapon in MWO at 4.75s. It also takes over 10s (roughly 12-13s) to reach the target at max range vs. 1.3s for the AC5 (also has 1.7x the range of the LRM). Plus, the AC5 can't fail to fire due to ECM nor have its damage mitigated by AMS. It has a slightly higher DPS (4.21 vs 4) but it is a spread weapon and, without Artemis, it is bound to miss with a portion of the missiles fired. And, did I mention that it weighs 3 more tons than the AC5?

Quick frankly, all ACs need to be recalculated at like 3 dps cause they're out of hand right now.

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 24 February 2014 - 03:20 AM, said:

You see it as a problem, I see it as pretty realistic. AC2 has to spray a lot of Depleted Uranium to equal the sledgehammer strike of a AC20.

What "sledgehammer strike"? The AC/20 is supposed to be burst-fire, remember? There hasn't been a single AC/20 described that is single-projectile, and only one UAC/20 that's possibly single-projectile. ALL the rest are described as burst- or continuous-fire.

Face it Joe, your AC/20 isn't a sledgehammer, it's a jackhammer.

Joseph Mallan, on 24 February 2014 - 03:20 AM, said:

You quoted the latest CBT book that tries to describe AC fire and it was worded in such a fashion that MWO ACs are ALL AC20s presently. They all throw X amount of damage in Y amount of time. So what we have in game presently is 4 AC20 of varying mass.

Yeah, that's yet another problem with the ACs, they vary from 3.33 to 5.0 DPS - and the AC/2 has higher DPS than the AC/5. As you say, they're all AC/20s in disguise, and the power progression within the AC family is messed up as well.

Joseph Mallan, on 24 February 2014 - 03:20 AM, said:

This is not a bad thing for the Shooter. Not everyone wants to spray and pray.

That was my point exactly. Not only do the ACs deliver their damage better, they also allow more defensive freedom than the other weapon systems.

Joseph Mallan, on 24 February 2014 - 03:20 AM, said:

So instead of making the "better" weapon worse, make the lesser weapons better. Shorten Beam duration for lasers to 0.75-0.5 seconds. Missiles... Well not having to twist is a good thing and since LRMs can be launched at a target sight unseen it is not a big negative.

If we take all the other weapons up to the level of the ACs and PPCs, the TTK will be so short it'll make your head spin. And Joe, tell me if you think that's BattleTech. I know I don't. I see BattleTech as armoured giants pounding away at each other for minutes until something finally gives and one of them dies. Slowly and fighting the whole way down

Joseph Mallan, on 24 February 2014 - 03:20 AM, said:

And a reduction of Max range for ACs would be a good thing.

Agreed.

Edited by stjobe, 24 February 2014 - 10:52 AM.