247 replies to this topic

[SirLANsalot]

According to PGI mechs are still dieing too fast, and have said that doubling the armor again would be a bad idea.

I think it would be a great idea and while were at it, triple current component HP as well.


So if armor was doubled again (4x over "TT" values) what would happen to the builds? What would happen to the weapons?

Well for starters, builds would mostly stay the same, some would be junked like the twin AC20 jager, but this would be a good thing (seeing AC40 mechs go away wouldn't be missed). An argument was made that if armor was increased again, that high alpha builds would be the only thing used. This is quite quite false, as armor increases the alpha builds become a little less desirable. In favor of high DPS builds were mechs are slugging it out and running very hot (very much like how things are described in the BT books). When armor levels are low, high alpha "boats" become a problem, because they are the most effective thing in wiping out a mech in a few vollys. However when armor values are increased exponentially, while weapons remain the same, you start to see people looking for the most effective DPS builds. Thats not to say high alpha won't be around, but it won't be the cream of the crop that it is now.

A suggestion was made to reduce weapons instead of just adding more armor. The issue with this is it would leave a very bad taste in most players mouths after being used to XX weapons fire rate and damage. Plus with the added armor you do get to keep damage values that make sense (AC20 is 20 damage ect ect).

A few examples of quadrupled armor.

Mr. Atlas would have a CT combined armor of 248 (current 124). When front loaded that would be 200 points of armor in the CT with 48 in the rear. This would give the big boy the tankyness he really dose need for his size. It would be scary to come up against that much armor, which would be quite literally the point!

Light mechs would benefit from this the most but yet still remain frgiale as there legs are there weak points.




"But what about cannonicity? TT didn't do this."

No it didn't, but this game isn't TT, and isn't a 100% cannon game either and the sooner people get that through there heads, the better. Stop trying to make this game Table Top, or a game that follows the lore to the letter. If you want a TT game, go play MW:T which is far closer to TT rules and build rules then this game.

[Josef Nader]

I wouldn't be opposed to more armor and higher internals. It'd be nice if fights lasted longer.

[DaZur]

It's a tough one...

While I appreciate the premise that mechs might be dying to quickly, going too far the other way leads to the mindless circles of death where opponents are trying desperately to inflict as much attrition damage as possible to disable / destroy the opposing mech...

[Andross Deverow]

I dont think we need to go adding more armor or internal hit points. I mean yeah some games I get stomped fast but I blame myself for getting into a position where I get focus fired on. Its my own fault, I think things are balanced pretty good at this time in regards to the amount of armor on mechs and the damage dealt by weapons. Bottom line is it sounds like the OP wants to be able to stomp around with impunity in his mech without worrying much about getting dropped quickly.

I mean no offense but numbers are already doubled, survivability is all about playstyle alot of times, be cautious not impulsive. You need to think about what you are doing in the battle and have awareness.

No matter what you do sometimes you will get dropped fast thats a sad fact but true, especially with the cheese meta builds running around. Just have fun.

Regards

[DONTOR]

Hmm not sure what I thnk about this although Im certain it means we would need more ammo per ton for every weapon, maybe even tiwce as much(if it were implemented).

[Khobai]

Mechs die too fast because we're still allowed to do 30-40 damage pinpoint alphas. The major offending weapons are the AC/20, AC/5, and PPCs.

Autocannons should fire in bursts. An AC/20 might get a magazine of 4 rounds. Each of those rounds would do 5 damage with a 0.5 delay between firings. When the 4 round magazine is depleted the weapon would go on cooldown for 2-3 seconds while the magazine reloads. The result is that the AC/20s damage is broken up into smaller chunks while the dps remains the same.

PPCs should do a portion of their damage to adjacent locations. They should do 6-7 damage to whatever location they hit and the remaining 3-4 damage spread to adjacent locations. It would be fixed damage spread with absolutely nothing random about it.

Other ways to increase TTK include adding different armor types like hardened armor, reflective armor, reactive armor, blue shield, etc... as well as increasing internal structure (which also has the benefit of making critical hits matter more).

[3rdworld]

Khobai, on 18 February 2014 - 12:58 PM, said:

Mechs die too fast because we're still allowed to do 30-40 damage pinpoint alphas. The major offending weapons are the AC/20, AC/5, and PPCs.

Stop staring at your opponent and taking it all in the CT. As the person getting shot at, it is your responsibility to spread the damage, it is in the best interest of the shooter to do the opposite.

[Khobai]

Quote

Stop staring at your opponent and taking it all in the CT. As the person getting shot at, it is your responsibility to spread the damage, it is in the best interest of the shooter to do the opposite.

You do realize players can aim right? If someone has good aim no amount of torso twisting is going to stop them from hitting you in the torso.

[3rdworld]

Khobai, on 18 February 2014 - 01:27 PM, said:

You do realize players can aim right? If someone has good aim no amount of torso twisting is going to stop them from hitting you in the torso.

Really? I guess BSK and SJR's snipers must be bad, because I keep twisting around and they keep hitting areas that aren't my CT.

I guess the best units in the world should start recruiting whoever it is that you drop with.

[East Indy]

Khobai, on 18 February 2014 - 12:58 PM, said:

Autocannons should fire in bursts.

PPCs should do a portion of their damage to adjacent locations. They should do 6-7 damage to whatever location they hit and the remaining 3-4 damage spread to adjacent locations. It would be fixed damage spread with absolutely nothing random about it.

Who's going to code all this so that it works at all, and then functions without worsening hit detection?

. . . you?

[Bagheera]

I'm not convinced that doubling armor again will result in v a change in build distribution. People would still run the same weapon load outs, engagements would just be longer.

To borrow your AC40 example, I think most of those players would welcome more armor to protect their xl.

If anything this is just a blanket buff for everything that leaves the game fundamentally the same, just with longer matches.

[3rdworld]

East Indy, on 18 February 2014 - 01:31 PM, said:

Who's going to code all this so that it works at all, and then functions without worsening hit detection?

. . . you?

PPCs spreading damage isn't a bad idea, not because of lowering TTK, but because it would help balance energy weapons.

But splash doesn't work that way in MWO, so adding spread would either do nothing or would be a buff for PPCs.

[Mcgral18]

The main issue is doubled armor, but nearly tripled damage across the board. The AC20 is supposed to do 20 damage over 10 seconds, we're doing 60 and a half recycle. Heatsinks still dissipate at 1.0, but most weapons are at 2.5 plus recycle, which means energy weapons are less effective since they can't cool down fast enough to compete.

Almost everything would have to be changed if we want TT balance, but even then we would have to change it for a real time game.

Edited by Mcgral18, 18 February 2014 - 01:39 PM.

[Shlkt]

This may sound crazy, but I'm dead serious... I think the following idea could work very well.

Add location-specific damage reduction with 2 sec decay. Whenever a mech is damaged, the damage reduction for that location (e.g. CT, LT, RT, etc...) is increased by (damage * 2)%. This damage reduction applies to all subsequent hits on that location, and decays by 50% per second.

Example sequence of events:

• AC/40 Jager alpha strikes the CT on an Atlas.
  
• First AC/20 round does 20 damage, increases CT damage reduction to (20 * 2)% = 40%
  
• Second AC/20 round does 20 - 8 = 12 damage, increases damage reduction to 64%
  
• Half a second passes, CT damage reduction is now 39%
  
• PPC strikes CT, does 10 - 3.9 = 6.1 damage

This method confers the following valuable effects:

• High-alpha weapons are the most effected
  
• Chainfiring is encouraged
  
• Weapons which spread damage (SRMs, LB 10-X) minimally affected due to multiple locations being struck
  
• GHOST HEAT CAN BE REMOVED ENTIRELY; the damage reduction penalty makes it redundant

Possible downsides:
* Highly coordinated fire from teammates is less effective when hitting the same location. Maybe that's not such a bad thing?)

Scientific explanation: vaporized armor from previous hits has absorbed some of your damage

EXAMPLE RESULTS:

• A standard 2x PPC + 2x AC/5 alpha strike would do 24.08 damage, approx. 20% total reduction
  
• An AC/40 alpha strike would do 32 damage, approx. 20% total reduction
  
• 6x LL setup would do ~40 damage, approx 25% total reduction
  
• 6x PPC setup would do 36.9 damage, approx. 40% total reduction
  
• Single lasers would do full damage

[East Indy]

3rdworld, on 18 February 2014 - 01:37 PM, said:

PPCs spreading damage isn't a bad idea, not because of lowering TTK, but because it would help balance energy weapons.

But splash doesn't work that way in MWO, so adding spread would either do nothing or would be a buff for PPCs.

I think both are great ideas in the abstract, actually. I'm for any one of a dozen solutions -- the problem is that the limits of this game's engine and this company's ability to code around it are very well-known quantities at this point. Anything beyond computation-side solutions (firing limits, hardpoint sizes) are just fairy-tale fantasy. We know they're not feasible in any way, so pining for them is totally unproductive.

It's just funny that I get razzed for a practical solution, even if it's not one that people necessarily want, and then folks turn around and demand PGI pull a rabbit out of a hat.

[3rdworld]

Khobai, on 18 February 2014 - 01:42 PM, said:

Apparently im the only player smart enough to wait for my target to rotate back to face me so I can destroy their CT. If the rest of you are all shooting Atlas arms its no wonder youre bad.

Yep, I am bad.

[NextGame]

mechs are dieing too fast; or bads, people making mistakes, and the unlucky are dieing too fast?

Edited by NextGame, 18 February 2014 - 11:19 PM.

[Rokuzachi]

I guess this is the ugly flipside to having shots land within a certain area based on an accuracy-type stat. With no deviation everything hits exactly where you're telling it to and you get such a high concentration of damage that it makes TTK potentially very low. The other end of the spectrum is frustrating in a different way.

A hybrid solution might work, where certain factors are taken into account to add dispersion to some weapons. For example, for each successive shot from an autocannon, it gains some amount of dispersion that is cumulative until the pilot eases up on the trigger. This could be a percentage of the reload time for it to be at full accuracy again, so if the weapon were to be fired immediately after being reloaded, it would have a chance to deviate to within .5 meters of the intended location per time this was done (so 1m, 1.5m, et cetera). Unfortunately this only does something to faster-firing weapons and makes playing peekaboom with AC/20 and the like more appealing.

Perhaps some added deviation to certain weapons based on the amount of movement being done when fired? I know, stabilizers and gyros and fire controls and all that. I just think that longer battles with less snapshot alphastriking people's faces off would be better for the game as a whole.

[Khobai]

Quote

Yep, I am bad.

I didnt say you were bad. I said you were wrong. Torso twisting has been around since MW2, and its always been highly situational at best. It doesnt significantly increase mech survivability. And the reality is pinpoint damage is far worse in MWO than any other mechwarrior game before it.

If you have to torso twist it means youre taking damage. And whenever youre taking damage and cant shoot back it means youre out of position. Flanking through cover is a much better defense than walking out in the open and torso twisting. Really the only time you should be torso twisting is if its one of those weird 1v1 or 1v2 fights where everybody is cored out and will die in one shot. Like I said its situational at best.

Also tournament wins dont mean anything. If they did my opinion would be far more validated than yours

Edited by Khobai, 18 February 2014 - 02:37 PM.

[Just wanna play]

I am just personally not a fan of 12 v 12 on ALL maps, some maps it works fine because the separate spawn points and map size make it more lance vs lance action on a mutli lance battlefield and it really does feel like a strategic game, but on other smaller maps, especially at choke points, the focus fire will just make it feel like a twitch shooter where you really don't want to be a big and slow assault mech because your armor just wont really last, and it kills the feeling of being an ASSAULT mech when you gotta have the little fast ******** go in and distract the enemy first and hope they aren't all looking at ya, sucks to a a single assault that got left behind vs 4 mediums

maybe make 12 v 12 for the larger maps (alpine, tourma etc) and 8 v 8 come back for places like frozen?

Edited by Just wanna play, 18 February 2014 - 02:17 PM.