216 replies to this topic

[Varent]

DaZur, on 04 March 2014 - 11:31 AM, said:

QTF...

The premise that balance = All weapons, mechs, and tactics are equal is a fractured premise. As you eluded to, there will always be a convergence in optimization that net the apex design.

In short... not every sows ear gets to be a silk purse no matter how hard you try to sell it as one...

The problem is everyone has their personal agenda to codify... Which in essence means no two players will agree exactly on what is "balanced".

Where exactly should PGI draw the line in regards to the meta?

Fact is and I will admit this is pure unadulterated hyperbole but I'm not convinced there's not a segment of this community that would not be happy until the only difference between a PPC and a sLas would be the particle effects....

sadly. Yes. This. The community as a whole is really heavily fractured. Honestly I think PGI just needs to put there foot down and state what they intend to do and if people don't like it they can get out. I think honestly they would earn more respect from gamers and have more people wanting to play if folks at least knew the direction. The lack of communication is causing a lot of the strife and conflict. That said I don't feel they will do that simply because they are too scared they will drive folks away.

[lsp]

No Remorse, on 04 March 2014 - 09:54 AM, said:

WAY back in closed beta there was a mech, the loathed and feared master of battlefield, the K2 guass kitty. This is where our story begins.

There were so many people who whined and complained that people could actually aim and hit their target with these guns that PGI eventually relented and nerfed the weapon. This is when PGI took that fateful step into submitting to every whim of their player base if it meant another dollar. This, of course, led to many more dollars lost in the long run.

As an aside, I played A LOT in closed beta. Do you know what my favourite mech to attack was? The K2, I would search them out and kill them before they had a chance to wreak havoc. I did it with another kitty, my "Whoosh" cat, two LRM 15s and four streaks, purpose built to kill K2's. If the K2 was lucky he would have my pods off before I got to him, but usually my LRMS would mess his aim up so badly he couldn't hit me until I was on top of him. So the K2 was far from the invincible machine everyone claims, you just had to use... what's the word, oh, yeah, TACTICS!

So with their new powers, the "Whiners Club" joined forces and began to complain about EVERY weapon in the game which killed them in game at least twice. PGI began its blitz to balance this game, not matter what the cost. Patch after patch was tweak this, re-tweak that, oops that was overboard, reign that in, now this is too powerful, wait, no it wasn't, it wasn't powerful enough. "Statistics, bah, we don't need statistics to balance things. This is a game! Why would we use complex statistical models when we can just ask our cadre of whiners, oh, I mean our player base?"

Then they turned their attention to the chassis, oh boy, hit box hell began. Do I need to talk about all the posts on hit boxes? Hit box here, hit there, hit boxes are everywhere. Now you have problem with hit registration, most likely to the amount of tampering with the hit boxes of every mech!

Breathe... okay I'm good, back to the point.

The results of all this mess is PGI has allocated so much time and resources on "balancing" these issues that they have failed to produce a single new weapon for the IS, and have no clue as to how to balance Clan tech. New chassis come out which drastically over power current mechs. On top of that, the forums are flooded with the over righteous and highly indignant whiners club who feel justified in complaining over everything! That's my job damn it!

If PGI could have stayed focus on developing the game like adding features instead of over balancing the hell out of it, we might have actually had a great game right now. But we got what we got, take it or leave it, I suggest the latter. This as much PGI's fault as it is the "Whiners Club" of course, this also led the the rise of the dreaded "PGI Defenders"

This, I also have seen this happening for the last two year.

[TB Freelancer]

Kaeb Odellas, on 04 March 2014 - 10:04 AM, said:

Overbalancing? You call this mess we have now "Overbalanced?" These are the people who took half a year to rein in PPC spam.

You nicely made the OP's point.

[Lykaon]

No Remorse, on 04 March 2014 - 09:54 AM, said:

WAY back in closed beta there was a mech, the loathed and feared master of battlefield, the K2 guass kitty. This is where our story begins.

There were so many people who whined and complained that people could actually aim and hit their target with these guns that PGI eventually relented and nerfed the weapon. This is when PGI took that fateful step into submitting to every whim of their player base if it meant another dollar. This, of course, led to many more dollars lost in the long run.

As an aside, I played A LOT in closed beta. Do you know what my favourite mech to attack was? The K2, I would search them out and kill them before they had a chance to wreak havoc. I did it with another kitty, my "Whoosh" cat, two LRM 15s and four streaks, purpose built to kill K2's. If the K2 was lucky he would have my pods off before I got to him, but usually my LRMS would mess his aim up so badly he couldn't hit me until I was on top of him. So the K2 was far from the invincible machine everyone claims, you just had to use... what's the word, oh, yeah, TACTICS!

So with their new powers, the "Whiners Club" joined forces and began to complain about EVERY weapon in the game which killed them in game at least twice. PGI began its blitz to balance this game, not matter what the cost. Patch after patch was tweak this, re-tweak that, oops that was overboard, reign that in, now this is too powerful, wait, no it wasn't, it wasn't powerful enough. "Statistics, bah, we don't need statistics to balance things. This is a game! Why would we use complex statistical models when we can just ask our cadre of whiners, oh, I mean our player base?"

Then they turned their attention to the chassis, oh boy, hit box hell began. Do I need to talk about all the posts on hit boxes? Hit box here, hit there, hit boxes are everywhere. Now you have problem with hit registration, most likely to the amount of tampering with the hit boxes of every mech!

Breathe... okay I'm good, back to the point.

The results of all this mess is PGI has allocated so much time and resources on "balancing" these issues that they have failed to produce a single new weapon for the IS, and have no clue as to how to balance Clan tech. New chassis come out which drastically over power current mechs. On top of that, the forums are flooded with the over righteous and highly indignant whiners club who feel justified in complaining over everything! That's my job damn it!

If PGI could have stayed focus on developing the game like adding features instead of over balancing the hell out of it, we might have actually had a great game right now. But we got what we got, take it or leave it, I suggest the latter. This as much PGI's fault as it is the "Whiners Club" of course, this also led the the rise of the dreaded "PGI Defenders"

Truth be told frequently the players you think are bitching and crying about things have actually discovered a problem but frequently lack the ability to identify what that problem actually is.

K2 Gausskitty to the average forum complainer = Gauss rifles are OP'ed.

The actual problem that went unidentified by the masses for over a year?

Pinpoint front loading high damage alphas that exploit a weakness in the armor mechanics.

Had PGI listened to the minority of players who had correctly identified the real issue rearing it's ugly head way back then perhaps we would not have "solutions" like GhostHeat,Gauss charging and AC20/AC10 projectile speed alterations to desync those weapons to make front loading alphas more difficult.

In your example of your prefered Gausskitty hunter it was a A1 Catapult 2 LRM 15s and 4 SSR2s that in our post ECM world is utter garbage if an ECM is on the other team.

I also used LRMs as a counter for the Gausscats and it worked until ECM nullified this and if you have been around as long as I we saw the rise of the alpha warrior game shortly after with the Highlander making an appearance.

A few system tweaks (HSR) some PPC buffs combined with an over featured ECM mechanic and we saw 40-60 point pinpoint alpha strikes being flung from under ECM cloaks as the norm in organized play.

This all points directly back to when some players first identified the GaussCat as an imbalanced design but failed to see the actual problem was the damage dealing mechanics and not Gauss Rifles dealing damage.


And now we are here,and it's far to late to actually fix the source of the problems.The time for that was in beta not in a live game.

[lsp]

Master Maniac, on 04 March 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

They won't be happy until everybody's just shooting multi-colored lasers. And then we'll have Mechs retooled into crapperjack "MOBA" archetypes, and everybody will be talking in whatever supahleetpro speak is currently in fashion about how to MinMax their Atlas into a tank with a Level Four Thunderstrike AOE module that does a +5 Sonic Nova with a 5 second cooldown and oh no why why why.

A lot of gamers today think games that are based on numbers and numbers alone are and should be the standard, and anything that deviates into skill-based territory needs to be regulated back into their comfort zone. People cry when they get shot down by players who have better skill and accuracy than they do, and they whine because there's no single-button counter to it. It's a sad affair.

Agreed.

[Tincan Nightmare]

If the forum 'whiners' have so much power, how the hell does ECM even exist? When ECM was first put into the game it created one of the biggest outpouring of hate and rage ever for the MWO forums. In fact, I think it was shortly after that when PGI 'nerfed' the forums by breaking it up into so many subdivisions, because the only topic for months was how bad ECM was. PGI's response (besides giving the forums the hatchet), a trickle of 'counters' to a system that should never have worked like it does. Yah, all of us on these forums just have all the power over PGI, and it's definitely us who have 'unbalanced' the game.

[Mazzyplz]

PanchoTortilla, on 04 March 2014 - 10:34 AM, said:

Yeah there was absolutely nothing wrong with the weapon that generated almost no heat, did extreme damage at all ranges, NEVER exploded like it was supposed to due to a bug, and also had non-explosive ammunition. Despite it clearly NOT fitting core BattleTech rules or PGI's own description of the weapon's explosive nature.

The Closed Beta Gauss Rifle was the textbook definition of broken -> it was not functioning the way the programmer intended and all the Beta testers that demanded PGI take a look at it because it was too good (mostly due to K2 abuse) were 100% correct in their assessment.

PGI admitted it was bugged and fixed it yet we still have ignorant cretins who insist the bugs they exploited were the way the game was supposed to be.

The people you call 'whiners' did their jobs as Closed Beta testers and brought the bugged gauss rifle to the devs' attention. What exactly did YOU do as a beta tester besides remain oblivious to the bug that made gauss rifles the undisputed best weapon in the game which the CPLT-K2 was able to exploit two of?

QFT


all the guys above sayin you don't need balancing in the weapons because they will turn into just different particle effects are hilarious > so let me get this straight, the "flavor" you want your guns to have is one being a pea shooter and the other one being an orbital strike cannon, that's flavor you say.
and then when someone points out you have an orbital cannon you say it's twitch and your reflexes are just better.

it's like splash damage decided in their game enemy territory (A TWITCH BASED SHOOTER) that from now on only 2 classes would actually deal acceptable damage. the other ones just get a pistol, cause it's just as useful, except a different "FLAVOR" (yeah right) and tough luck. 'use tactics or go L2p and don't cry'

how would that go down with the playerbase, good?

yeah if you think that would go down well you should probably be wearing a helmet so you don't accidentally hurt yourself




lots of people white knighting the LURM sayin it was great back in lrmpocalypse.
it was balanced and now it does low dmg but it's still useful. the "flavor" there being that you can shoot em indirectly and they fly slow.

the flavor of the ppc is no ammo high heat.

damage values have nothing to do with the individual characteristic of the weapon, and when you say so all it does is make you look like a crybaby who just wants to keep exploting some actual balance issue for a bit longer

Edited by Mazzyplz, 05 March 2014 - 12:49 AM.

[WhiteTiger]

I somewhat agree with No Remorse about the whiners and the concern that the devs are taking too much time catering to them about over balancing and getting ridicules for example: making machine guns and flamers viable weapons against mechs!
In BattleTech and all the other mechwarriors games, these weapons were never considered as mech killer weapons(they were used for infantry, not to kill other mechs) But in MWO they are buffed so much, especially machine guns that in some mechs they are used as primary weapons, and many take machine guns for the sole purpose of using it to kill mechs hitting the crits!
Balancing is fine to a point, first to make sure they perform in the battlefield in realtime and under multiple environmental conditions. Next make fine adjustments to each weapon to capture the essence of that weapons strengths and weakness.
In BattleTech certain weapons were considered Uber weapons, but they all had something to circumvent them from being overly used on any given mech, being heat, size, range or potential for blowing up(Gauss). Certain mechs tried to boat them for the IS the Awesome comes to mind, but that mech had to still deal with the heat besides sacrificing speed and maneuverability to be able to do that. Trying to balance all the weapons leads to sameness so why have different weapons if that's what it will be in the end. Machine guns and flamers were not meant to be mech killer weapons...a novelty yes, but not viable mech weapons.
PGI, it's time to revisit each weapon and determine it's role and refine it to that role. Tactics, skill and experience plays a role in countering people exploiting certain aspects. Trying to neuter or buff something to counter the exploit because people are too lazy or just cry babies is counter productive. Instead you should encourage them work at developing their skills, gaining experience and coming up with a counter to the exploit. You could even give them some pointers on how to over come the exploit, but don't give in to their whining and crying. And stop trying to expand the roles of certain weight classes(Lights in particular) without first giving them the ability to excel in their primary role. For example: A light against an Assault should be a death sentence, unless of course if the Assault pilot is a complete noob. Unfortunately too many times I've witnessed lights engaging assaults and heavies with little to no fear of what their up against and to me that's wrong. The game is so balanced that their is no respect for the higher weight classes.
Sorry for the long tirade, I'm a huge BT and MW fan and I want MWO to be the best that's ever been, but I think they got lost along the way and I am hoping they get back on track.

[Mazzyplz]

WhiteTiger, on 05 March 2014 - 12:56 AM, said:

I somewhat agree with No Remorse about the whiners and the concern that the devs are taking too much time catering to them about over balancing and getting ridicules for example: making machine guns and flamers viable weapons against mechs!
In BattleTech and all the other mechwarriors games, these weapons were never considered as mech killer weapons(they were used for infantry, not to kill other mechs) But in MWO they are buffed so much, especially machine guns that in some mechs they are used as primary weapons, and many take machine guns for the sole purpose of using it to kill mechs hitting the crits!
Balancing is fine to a point, first to make sure they perform in the battlefield in realtime and under multiple environmental conditions. Next make fine adjustments to each weapon to capture the essence of that weapons strengths and weakness.
In BattleTech certain weapons were considered Uber weapons, but they all had something to circumvent them from being overly used on any given mech, being heat, size, range or potential for blowing up(Gauss). Certain mechs tried to boat them for the IS the Awesome comes to mind, but that mech had to still deal with the heat besides sacrificing speed and maneuverability to be able to do that. Trying to balance all the weapons leads to sameness so why have different weapons if that's what it will be in the end. Machine guns and flamers were not meant to be mech killer weapons...a novelty yes, but not viable mech weapons.
PGI, it's time to revisit each weapon and determine it's role and refine it to that role. Tactics, skill and experience plays a role in countering people exploiting certain aspects. Trying to neuter or buff something to counter the exploit because people are too lazy or just cry babies is counter productive. Instead you should encourage them work at developing their skills, gaining experience and coming up with a counter to the exploit. You could even give them some pointers on how to over come the exploit, but don't give in to their whining and crying. And stop trying to expand the roles of certain weight classes(Lights in particular) without first giving them the ability to excel in their primary role. For example: A light against an Assault should be a death sentence, unless of course if the Assault pilot is a complete noob. Unfortunately too many times I've witnessed lights engaging assaults and heavies with little to no fear of what their up against and to me that's wrong. The game is so balanced that their is no respect for the higher weight classes.
Sorry for the long tirade, I'm a huge BT and MW fan and I want MWO to be the best that's ever been, but I think they got lost along the way and I am hoping they get back on track.

the machinegun thing is a thing mechwarrior 2 and 4 fans asked for because it was a mech killing weapon in those games and people would fit 8 of em into a timber wolf. tbh if this was a perfect world it would be taken out of the game because there is no infantry, but since there are machinegun fans (god knows why - didn't they leave with the rest of the goons and equestria?) they needed to make it a mech killing weapon to justify it being in the game in the first place. it's not difficult to see how this came to happen.

is it too powerful? if you ask me, yes.

Quote

gaining experience and coming up with a counter to the exploit. You could even give them some pointers on how to over come the exploit,

if it's an exploit then it's BY DEFINITION unfair advantage. do you always start your games of monopoly without any monopoly money? and let the rest use it? if you don't then you're a bit of a hypocrite.

do you think there are no tactics in balanced games like ET or TF2? because i got newsflash for you; there are tactics there, and the game suffers less in a bunch of ways - so much so, relatively newer games like brink, warframe etc. try to emulate such balance, which is considered GOOD among game developers (not whiny gamers)

and no they didn't stop being twitch shooters

when those games give you a choice, they all have their appeal and it's about as much appeal as any other choice, but in a different way, that's how you make a game. which is why all of those developers are balancing their games in that way, the correct way.

not making useless weapons like lbx10, srm, and pretending it's a choice, it's not a choice. when a weapon is useless then it's not even up for choice for most of the playerbase, and the game becomes LESS VARIED, NOT MORE

it's simple common sense really, surprisingly it seems to be in short supply around these parts.

Edited by Mazzyplz, 05 March 2014 - 01:17 AM.

[Varent]

Mazzyplz, on 05 March 2014 - 12:59 AM, said:

the machinegun thing is a thing mechwarrior 2 and 4 fans asked for because it was a mech killing weapon in those games and people would fit 8 of em into a timber wolf. tbh if this was a perfect world it would be taken out of the game because there is no infantry, but since there are machinegun fans (god knows why - didn't they leave with the rest of the goons and equestria?) they needed to make it a mech killing weapon to justify it being in the game in the first place. it's not difficult to see how this came to happen.

is it too powerful? if you ask me, yes.




if it's an exploit then it's BY DEFINITION unfair advantage. do you always start your games of monopoly without any monopoly money? and let the rest use it? if you don't then you're a bit of a hypocrite.

do you think there are no tactics in balanced games like ET or TF2? because i got newsflash for you; there are tactics there, and the game suffers less in a bunch of ways - so much so, relatively newer games like brink, warframe etc. try to emulate such balance, which is considered GOOD among game developers (not whiny gamers)

and no they didn't stop being twitch shooters

Sadly I sorta feel as though there is a vocal minority of older gamers that whine on the forums about twitch shooting mechanics simply because they cant keep up themselves and feel the game needs to be nerfed to the point that actual skill in a shooter doesn't come into play so they can compete. Its disappointing.

[Mazzyplz]

Varent, on 05 March 2014 - 01:16 AM, said:

Sadly I sorta feel as though there is a vocal minority of older gamers that whine on the forums about twitch shooting mechanics simply because they cant keep up themselves and feel the game needs to be nerfed to the point that actual skill in a shooter doesn't come into play so they can compete. Its disappointing.

i have never seen that in any game i have played. not when i was a member of the splash damage forums originally when ET came out in 2003 ish, or tf2 or anything.

if people really wanted to go that way they would have asked the dice roll shots be implemented to randomize all damage,
that didn't and will not happen, 99.9% of the playerbase is against it. your fear is irrational and illogical

people just want the srm, lbx10, etc to stop being garbage because they enjoy the mechanics of it,
having a shotgun type weap, not getting your missiles aimed by a computer... instead of being forced to use auto missiles so you don't lose, i see no fun in that and it takes what would have been a legitimate choice completely away.

now if you don't want the triple uac5 nerfed then maybe we should buff lasers so they shoot way faster and obscure your vision with explosions so you can't aim back, and rattle your cockpit, but then i think we know who the one crying would be.

if pgi opts for nerfing stuff instead of buffing all other weaps like maybe they could, is because then matches would end a lot faster if all weapons could kill a mech as fast as multiple autocannons. they'd have to double hitpoint and/or armor values again. so nerfing one thing is probably easier - if only because of that. not because of any ridiculous reasons you have thought of


another fallacy in your argument is that if we just assume for a second that every single weapon does the same dmg (not seriously making this suggestion, just play along for a bit) > it would still be a twitch shooter. what about it would make it not a twitch shooter?
ever played call of duty hardcore mode? all weapons kill you in 1 shot basically, so all are moreless equal - is that NOT a twitch shooter? how.
peek around corner shoot, you need good aim and to shoot first. oh yea, it IS a twitch shooter... so what's the problem?

how does hardcore mode in call of duty remove the skill factor? if anything it raises the cap because you can't count on your ubercanon mg42 to get you out of a tough spot, a player with a pistol will pwn you as easy as you can pwn him, it's as twitch and as skill-based as it gets. you can only count on your skill, and not your loadout/setup to save you. while still mantaining meaningful differences like rate of fire, ease of aim, reload time, clip size and how comfortable the iron sights are (or how much of the screen they obscure)

it's a LOT more skill based than the stupid rock-paper-scissors idea for balancing, which falls apart when all 12 players on one team pick scissor. it completely and utterly breaks the myopic balancing mechanic.

Edited by Mazzyplz, 05 March 2014 - 02:00 AM.

[Name115734]

Lykaon, on 04 March 2014 - 09:50 PM, said:

Pinpoint front loading high damage alphas that exploit a weakness in the armor mechanics.

Had PGI listened to the minority of players who had correctly identified the real issue rearing it's ugly head way back then perhaps we would not have "solutions" like GhostHeat,Gauss charging and AC20/AC10 projectile speed alterations to desync those weapons to make front loading alphas more difficult.

...

And now we are here,and it's far to late to actually fix the source of the problems.The time for that was in beta not in a live game.

Very true.

I think this points to a two fold problem. One is lack of proper analysis on the part of PGI, and the other was the inability for them to see good advice and act upon it. In both cases, I truly believe their ego had more to do with the failure to implement a proper strategy than any other factor.

[Khobai]

Quote

Sadly I sorta feel as though there is a vocal minority of older gamers that whine on the forums about twitch shooting mechanics simply because they cant keep up themselves and feel the game needs to be nerfed to the point that actual skill in a shooter doesn't come into play so they can compete. Its disappointing.

Twitch shooting isn't the problem. Being able to aim for specific locations has always been a part of mechwarrior, and it definitely shouldn't be removed from MWO.

The problem is PGI used tabletop damage and armor values which are designed for random hit locations and not aiming at specific locations. The numbers PGI used just dont work for what theyre trying to accomplish.

Aiming at specific locations is 100% fine. jumping up in the air and shooting is 100% fine. The only thing thats not fine is doing 30-40 damage to one location. Weapons like ACs and PPCs need to be given damage spreading mechanics that distribute their damage across multiple hit locations (i.e. burst fire and splash damage).

Its so simple yet Paul doesnt seem to get it. Pinpoint damage needs to be reduced or PPCs/ACs will always be the dominant weapon archetype. The only other way to balance them is to nerf them into the ground which simply isnt fun... look what thats done to the gauss and erppc... NOT FUN.

Edited by Khobai, 05 March 2014 - 05:22 AM.

[Thorqemada]

I use 1x ERPPC and i have seen an Awesome using 3x ERPPC with a very good success (and ovbviously a shitload of DHS).
The ERPPC is perfectly fine!
The Gauss (one single Gauss) could need a reduction of the cooldown but that would make 2 or 3 Gauss (i have witnessed it) setups to powerful.

A solution would be that Gauss and PPC/ERPPC become weapons that charge up (automatically) and can be fired instant when ready.
But all charging weapoins charge up in a serial fashion one after another:
1x Gauss = 4 sec
2x Gauss = 8 sec
1x PPC = 4 sec
2x PPC = 8 sec
Gauss + PPC = 4+4=8 sec
etc.
(Values can be adjustet as needed)

Promotes to build non boating Mechs that field a diversity of weapons - you would probably go 1 PPC or 1 Gauss + Ballistics/Lasers/Missiles as non-Sniper and Sniper would still boat the Gauss./PPC to do high Alpha damage while the bigger cooldown asks for a better firing judgement as it should be.

PPC do 50/50 Pinpoint/Splash damage
ACs do Bursts
Lasers/Flamer/MG DOT
Gauss is the only single slug pinpoint weapon

Gauss.Sniping is still totally viable as firing frequency does not matter for Snipers while it also becomes a Weapon that Casuals can handle again and Single Gauss setups become more viable compared to the Freak Status it currently has.

[Mcgral18]

Khobai, on 05 March 2014 - 05:10 AM, said:

Twitch shooting isn't the problem. Being able to aim for specific locations has always been a part of mechwarrior, and it definitely shouldn't be removed from MWO.

The problem is PGI used tabletop damage and armor values which are designed for random hit locations and not aiming at specific locations. The numbers PGI used just dont work for what theyre trying to accomplish.

Aiming at specific locations is 100% fine. jumping up in the air and shooting is 100% fine. The only thing thats not fine is doing 30-40 damage to one location. Weapons like ACs and PPCs need to be given damage spreading mechanics that distribute their damage across multiple hit locations (i.e. burst fire and splash damage).

Its so simple yet Paul doesnt seem to get it. Pinpoint damage needs to be reduced or PPCs/ACs will always be the dominant weapon archetype. The only other way to balance them is to nerf them into the ground which simply isnt fun... look what thats done to the gauss and erppc... NOT FUN.

Another issue is the fact PGI never used proper TT weapon values, they increased the RoF to just around 3 for most weapons, made the recycle rate of almost all weapons 4 seconds then only doubled the armor. That means a RoF of 3-20x TT against 2X armor, which simply isn't enough. Give everyone a free 100% accurate no-weight targetting computer, and we get this exploitation of the armor system.

It's very effective, but can really ruin the fun.

[Varent]

Khobai, on 05 March 2014 - 05:10 AM, said:

Twitch shooting isn't the problem. Being able to aim for specific locations has always been a part of mechwarrior, and it definitely shouldn't be removed from MWO.

The problem is PGI used tabletop damage and armor values which are designed for random hit locations and not aiming at specific locations. The numbers PGI used just dont work for what theyre trying to accomplish.

Aiming at specific locations is 100% fine. jumping up in the air and shooting is 100% fine. The only thing thats not fine is doing 30-40 damage to one location. Weapons like ACs and PPCs need to be given damage spreading mechanics that distribute their damage across multiple hit locations (i.e. burst fire and splash damage).

Its so simple yet Paul doesnt seem to get it. Pinpoint damage needs to be reduced or PPCs/ACs will always be the dominant weapon archetype. The only other way to balance them is to nerf them into the ground which simply isnt fun... look what thats done to the gauss and erppc... NOT FUN.

I think we should break this down. Mostly because im curious.

Why is having your weapons go where you aim them not fun?

or do you just not like it when you are having fire directed at you and being taken down quickly. (like it is in most shooting games....)

I find the game quite fun myself. When I die I accept it and move on and pop in another game.

That said Im also fairly good at mitigating damage by turning my mech appropriatly to absorb damage in my arms or torso, or if I have jump jets jump jetting to help mitigate it further (though this may be more difficult with the JJ changes). I think this actually does alot to 'distriubte' the damage wich you are speaking of. It however does it in a way that makes players who are skilled be able to distribute it better. I feel this is a good thing. It also rewards players with good aim by being able to fight against this distribution possibly. I also feel this is a good thing. Skill on both ends simulating random distribution or not. As upposed to an in game mechanic that would take skill further away from the game by instituting random damage splash... in a shooter.

Im having trouble grasping why anyone would want this unless you literally dont want actual player skill to be a part of this game. Sadly I think many players out there (at least on the forums) feel this way. Wich is rather shameful.

[Deathlike]

Tincan Nightmare, on 04 March 2014 - 11:35 PM, said:

If the forum 'whiners' have so much power, how the hell does ECM even exist? When ECM was first put into the game it created one of the biggest outpouring of hate and rage ever for the MWO forums. In fact, I think it was shortly after that when PGI 'nerfed' the forums by breaking it up into so many subdivisions, because the only topic for months was how bad ECM was. PGI's response (besides giving the forums the hatchet), a trickle of 'counters' to a system that should never have worked like it does. Yah, all of us on these forums just have all the power over PGI, and it's definitely us who have 'unbalanced' the game.

QFT

[Khobai]

Quote

Why is having your weapons go where you aim them not fun?

Thats not what I said. Did you even read my post? You should absolutely be able to aim your weapons. You just shouldnt be able to do 30-40 damage to one location. Aiming is fine, the damage is just too high.

Adding splash damage to PPCs doesnt prevent you from aiming them. You can still aim them at someones center torso and do 60%-70% of the damage to the center torso and the other 30%-40% gets distributed evenly to both side torsos. Its simply a means of lowering the damage. Thats all. And if anything it raises the skill cap by making PPCs less easy mode. No more killing mechs in 2-3 shots. You actually have to work for it.

Also medium mechs only have 30-40 armor on their side torsos. Its really stupid that all of their armor can get stripped off in one shot. And a second shot can actually kill them. Especially when your hitboxes are the size of assault mech hitboxes and your pigeonholed into running XL to compete. Its just not fun to play a medium with the 30-40 point alphas flying around... they need to be nerfed.

Edited by Khobai, 05 March 2014 - 02:54 PM.

[Varent]

Khobai, on 05 March 2014 - 02:45 PM, said:

Thats not what I said. Did you even read my post? You should absolutely be able to aim your weapons. You just shouldnt be able to do 30-40 damage to one location. Aiming is fine, the damage is just too high.

I disagree. You would have to land 2-3 alphas all on one area to possibly down aany medium or larger mech in most circumstances. If your sitting there just taking that damage your doing something wrong, drastically.

[Khobai]

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I disagree. You would have to land 2-3 alphas all on one area to possibly down aany medium or larger mech in most circumstances. If your sitting there just taking that damage your doing something wrong, drastically.

If what youre saying was true then hunchbacks would never lose their hunches. The hunch is the first thing to go on most hunchbacks. Theres really not a whole lot they can do to protect it from 40 point alphas.

Mediums are super easy to hit in the side torsos, theyre friggin huge, and quite frankly not all that fast. The hunchback is one of the smaller mediums and its hunch is incredibly easy to shoot out.

30+ pinpoint damage just isnt a fun game mechanic at all.

Edited by Khobai, 05 March 2014 - 03:01 PM.