70 replies to this topic

[Relic1701]

On the boating issue, briefly, some mechs were designed to 'boat'. As far as I know there are currently only 3 in the game, the Hunchback 4P (8 ML), the Awesome 8Q (3 PPC), and the Awesome 9M (3 ERPPC), but due to the unlimited customisation, these mechs have fallen by the wayside, and are no longer thought about (well maybe the 4P, but not often )

There are mechs that can run basically the same builds, but with better hitboxes or hardpoint positions or has Jump Jets or whatever, so you rarely even see the terror that should be an Awesome coming at you. The Atlas, designed as the scariest mech ever created, generally out gunned by mechs 3/4 or less of it's weight, hell, I've seen a Firestarter outgunning an Atlas.

To put it in a nutshell guys, all I really want from this game, is a bit more flavour and individuality, not the same loadout on the same 4/5 chassis.

There are many suggestions here, some drastic (HP limitations), some just a number tweak (heatscale), and some others that are in between. Keep up the great discussion guys

Edited by Relic1701, 20 March 2014 - 10:28 AM.

[CDLord HHGD]

Relic1701, on 20 March 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

On the boating issue, briefly, some mechs were designed to 'boat'. As far as I know there are currently only 3 in the game, the Hunchback 4P (8 ML), the Awesome 8Q (3 PPC), and the Awesome 9M (3 ERPPC), but due to the unlimited customisation, these mechs have fallen by the wayside, and are no longer thought about (well maybe the 4P, but not often )

There are mechs that can run basically the same builds, but with better hitboxes or hardpoint positions or has Jump Jets or whatever, so you rarely even see the terror that should be an Awesome coming at you. The Atlas, designed as the scariest mech ever created, generally out gunned by mechs 3/4 or less of it's weight, hell, I've seen a Firestarter outgunning an Atlas.

To put it in a nutshell guys, all I really want from this game, is a bit more flavour and individuality, not the same loadout on the same 4/5 chassis.

There are many suggestions here, some drastic (HP limitations), some just a number tweak (heatscale), and some others that are in between. Keep up the great discussion guys

One thing I was thinking of was to have these mech's have a quirk that bypasses the GH for the stock loadout. Even the Awesome 8Q/9M is meant to do a 2/1/2 punch instead of a full Alpha.... This is expressed in lore as a way to mitigate the extreme heat buildup from using all three simultaneously.

[Rename]

You guys sound like those old ladies from the land of no were, always giving opinions on which they reflect their shitty life, in this case, your shitty play-style.

Well, not for all. there are good ideas, but only some bunch in the middle of a thousand, that want to open their mouthful in desperation for success, I'm not going to specify which because I'm a no man party.

Trust more in the developers, if more trust were given to the developers from the start, this mess probably were not be seen.

Now we are starting to watch our motivation filled with bandages and patches trying to hide the trash that was made for the[redacted] mind consumer.

If you can't beat the world don't, join it.

So the sooner we start to trust in the developers the faster they reach their goal and their ideal game they had in mind.

Remember, if it were not for the developers we have here, this game would never existed!, And I remember pretty well all those days I dreamed for a new game when playing mercenaries and watching fan made videos.

The potential for this game is great.

Edited by miSs, 24 March 2014 - 10:31 AM.

[smokefield]

why do you think most of the people play this game ? why do you think there are people that come with constructive ideas and suggestions ? why do you think there are people paying the prices PGI asks even if those prices are outrageous from certain perspective ?

before insulting people on a topic that actually was constructive and had a decent language/attitude you should know that
there is a saying : "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."...if you get the hint.

[CDLord HHGD]

@ Rename

Thanks for reading the thread, especially the part where we were having a good constructive conversation without insults and bias. Yes, we do have the great game in part from the developers. You know what the other part is? The players. And there are more than enough players concerned about the meta to voice our opinions and ideas to the community and developers. The potential for this game is great, but I will not join the meta-game. I know plenty of units out there that plan to start their own league when private matches come out and not even bother with Community Warfare partly because of the meta. I hope PGI realizes this and reviews the situation. There will be a lot of meta-players out there without people to play against because we'll restrict it in our own leagues or just leave the game entirely.

[LowSubmarino]

In all the battletech novels I read the actual encounters between mechs played out a little different than in this game. That is medium and even heavies could not take many large laser, ppc or ballistic shots (or huge missile salvos).

The encounters did not last remotely as long as in this game. Only the assaults could absorb more of those heavy caliber weapons. In the novels no medium could survive two frontal ac 20, gauss or multiple ppc shots without outright exploding or being damaged so badly that they had to eject or were crippled.

Yet here even lights can take multiple ac 20 or gauss or ppc hits. Which is absurd really haha but thats how it is. If pinpoint/alpha damage is reduced or changed (especially if it is reduced) it might change mechwarrior online completly. Could be better could be worse but it will move further away from what the encounters looked like in the books.

Edited by oneda, 24 March 2014 - 06:26 AM.

[CDLord HHGD]

oneda, on 24 March 2014 - 06:24 AM, said:

In all the battletech novels I read the actual encounters between mechs played out a little different than in this game. That is medium and even heavies could not take many large laser, ppc or ballistic shots (or huge missile salvos).

The encounters did not last remotely as long as in this game. Only the assaults could absorb more of those heavy caliber weapons. In the novels no medium could survive two frontal ac 20, gauss or multiple ppc shots without outright exploding or being damaged so badly that they had to eject or were crippled.

Yet here even lights can take multiple ac 20 or gauss or ppc hits. Which is absurd really haha but thats how it is. If pinpoint/alpha damage is reduced or changed (especially if it is reduced) it might change mechwarrior online completly. Could be better could be worse but it will move further away from what the encounters looked like in the books.

Back in early beta the decision was made to double the amount of armor a mech has. PGI wanted to increase the TTK so people could stay in matches longer and fight and have fun longer. The community responded by taking advantage of the meta to reduce TTK.

Personally, I am OK with long TTK. The more I stay in a match, the more fun I have. I'm not the only one.

I too quote lore from books when making my points. Lets take a look at Victor's battle with the Clans on Twycross. That battle lasted more than a day without resupply or repairs. The battle for Luthien also lasted quite a while. Also, when it comes to applying novels to MMO heroes, heroes always roll a natural twenty.

[Kyle Lewis]

Coolant, on 17 March 2014 - 12:23 PM, said:

The high damage alpha in MWO is a joke compared to MW4:Mercs. It was common to see alphas of 80+ damage, and not uncommon to see 100+. Plus, Mercs didn't have double armor. If you are tired of 30+ alphas then not sure how much you would complain if you played Mercs. The difference in MWO is that there is no respawn. So 30+ alphas will bring you that much closer to death, well, being a spectator which isn't any fun. The real solution would be to bring a respawn game mode which I hope comes with the launch module....

NO, please god no...respawn is exactly the wrong way to take this game. With the ability to make drops the way we want, there is no need for respawning, the match lasts 15 minutes, you either play smart or you die. Just like how the real world works. all we need is for a bunch of large laser boating hunchbacks, charging in and dying and then respawning to start the process over and over again. THIS IS NOT COD.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Kyle Lewis, on 24 March 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

NO, please god no...respawn is exactly the wrong way to take this game. With the ability to make drops the way we want, there is no need for respawning, the match lasts 15 minutes, you either play smart or you die. Just like how the real world works. all we need is for a bunch of large laser boating hunchbacks, charging in and dying and then respawning to start the process over and over again. THIS IS NOT COD.

XD

[CDLord HHGD]

Bump

[Ruhkil]

a secondary issue behind the small/large hardpoints is maybe adding some NPC tanks or helicopters. I feel it would help with the "meta" issues in the following ways

1.AC/20 jager stomping around gets attacked by 4 LRM carriers or myrmidon tanks(they mount 1 ppc) he either is forced away from his objective is very damaged by the long range weapons of the tanks or is forced to use his sparse ammo and heat tolerance to take out NPC creeps.A savy player on the other team takes advantage of the short range almost overheated Jagers situation and kills it.

2. LRM boat with no/few secondary weapons
is engaged by short range tanks like a SRM carrier or Demolisher2(carries at least one ac/20 possibly 2) it dies if the tanks get in close range

3.PPC/AC5 victor
hard to counter with tanks alone but maybe a non-meta mechwarrior could wait for the victor to get close to heat shutdown from brawling with tanks?

it would at least punish those cheesy builds that have no energy weapons since almost every stock mech build carries a few laser weps for long operations.

not saying tanks should be added to all game modes since that would mess up skirmish and probably conquest but they would be perfect for assault maybe make a dropship or some factories that can be blown up to stop NPC spawn of other team. to go even further maybe make the dropship or factories spawn in different places to give scouts a reason to exist other than lagshield spider trolling.

the problem however is how these NPCs would spawn/behave maybe have 2 tanks spawn for each mech on the team and make a beeline for their assigned mech then once they reach within 200m of where their designated mech is they just freely hunt targets. Scout mechs( 40 tons or below ) would have the option of designating a heavier lancemate for their tanks to attach too so the tanks were not wasted trying to keep up for the whole match and would not give them away if they are trying to hide. This freeform behavior would concentrate the tanks around your own lines while not alllowing a troll player to mismanage his teams tanks on purpose.

Edited by Ruhkil, 08 April 2014 - 04:48 PM.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

If it took PGI this long to get to the point this game should have been at live. Do you really think they are going to go back and have to hire real programmers to resize the hardpoints in an engine they are barley starting to learn? HAHAHHAAHA *cough* HAHAHAHAHAH!

[Jam the Bam]

Good discussion guys but my only issue is this:

Why on earth would anyone EVER design a war machine that is forced to stay exposed for great amounts of time to have any kind of chance of unloading all those weapons? It doesn't make any sense. The reason for alpha strikes is unloading weapons and getting into cover. Its been that way in just about every form of ranged combat ever, from bows and arrows to modern guerilla warfare, any design that forces something to stay exposed for too long has always been a drawback.

I really don't want forced and unintuitive mechanics to make people to play in a way that quite frankly (in a military sense) is stupid. Just because someone wrote it in some Lore. The whole novel thing of mechs standing facing each other on a big field and slugging it out never made sense, same with designing mechs that couldn't even come close to firing all their weapons at once. Just because it's in the lore doesn't make it good.

The problem isn't the alpha strikes per say anyway, its the fact that all that damage can be unloaded into one location regardless of range, its that mechanic which allows people to load all these weapons into different parts of the body of the mech then converge them perfectly every single time. That's the only realistic mechanic which I could see could be changed to remove that aspect from the game.

Though I do agree with the sized hardpoint idea, not that it will ever happen really, simply because it would lend more flavour to all the different mechs, actually give them reasons to be used instead of simply going for the one that has 2E + 2B (in the current meta anyway). There are too many mechs that are simply inferior to others due to the freedom allowed in building your stompy robot.

[Bobzilla]

Jammerben87, on 09 April 2014 - 07:42 AM, said:

Good discussion guys but my only issue is this:

Why on earth would anyone EVER design a war machine that is forced to stay exposed for great amounts of time to have any kind of chance of unloading all those weapons? It doesn't make any sense. The reason for alpha strikes is unloading weapons and getting into cover. Its been that way in just about every form of ranged combat ever, from bows and arrows to modern guerilla warfare, any design that forces something to stay exposed for too long has always been a drawback.

You know there were lots of battles where men lined up shoulder to shoulder with weapons that could fire only once, then stand there in the open while taking time to reload them. Not the best idea, but not bad with weapons that were so inaccurate they basically 'hit a random location'. Now that is a real life instance, not deisgined to maximize fun, where as this is a game.

[PappySmurf]

(The high-pinpoint alpha damage meta is ruining this game. It's not poptarting, it's not gauss, it's not PPCs or AC20s. It's the combination of them all and ghost heat isn't doing what it was supposed to do. This one hit kill is ruining this game for me and I have spent a lot of money on this game (not as much as some, but a moderate amount). I want to propose my ideas for a way to balance it.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(cdlord) 2 +years ago at the start of closed beta a lot of us tried to tell PGI/IGP/RUSS/BRIAN
that the weapons far overpowered the armor the game was all offense and no defense the result today is the same all overpowered weapons. A lot of us proposed removing the Alpha-Strike mechanism all together.

Chain-fire and Group Firing times would have to be altered so a player could not abuse them to achieve the same effect as a massive Alpha-Shot. But like all things =PGI/IGP they blew us off and screwed up the game even more with stupid solutions that still to this day do not work.

[CDLord HHGD]

PappySmurf, on 10 April 2014 - 07:37 AM, said:

(The high-pinpoint alpha damage meta is ruining this game. It's not poptarting, it's not gauss, it's not PPCs or AC20s. It's the combination of them all and ghost heat isn't doing what it was supposed to do. This one hit kill is ruining this game for me and I have spent a lot of money on this game (not as much as some, but a moderate amount). I want to propose my ideas for a way to balance it.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(cdlord) 2 +years ago at the start of closed beta a lot of us tried to tell PGI/IGP/RUSS/BRIAN
that the weapons far overpowered the armor the game was all offense and no defense the result today is the same all overpowered weapons. A lot of us proposed removing the Alpha-Strike mechanism all together.

Chain-fire and Group Firing times would have to be altered so a player could not abuse them to achieve the same effect as a massive Alpha-Shot. But like all things =PGI/IGP they blew us off and screwed up the game even more with stupid solutions that still to this day do not work.

I'm going to add another paragraph from my OP as was missed in your quote. Not saying you quoted me wrong, but based on what you said, it has bearing.

Quote

I don't envy the task, but something needs to be done. I really hope you reconsider this because the meta is intolerable, it's not the way MechWarrior was meant to be. In lore, the alpha strike was meant as a last ditch hail Mary attack. I don't want to take that option away but I do want it gone as the primary attack method.

[PappySmurf]

Thanks for adding that quote back in. All previous PC MechWarrior games had a Alpha-Shot in the game but there was a major difference the Older PC MechWarrior games weapons were more balanced and not so pinpoint accurate. The older weapons would do more effect damage like knock downs=LRMS or shake/fuzz=PPC's, ETC but not just total destruction all at once.

MWO'S weapons are pinpoint damage that make the game terrible and when your hit by a group of players all at once the result is a 1 shot kill. Even in the older PC games being hit by 1-4 players did not result in a 1 shot kill unless players were hacking the game or playing NHUA=NO heat=Unlimited Ammo games.

Another problem with MWO is the mechs are walking targets after lights. Mediums, Heavies and assaults are so lethargic compared to previous PC MechWarrior games its crazy making them huge targets.Older PC MechWarrior mechs could actually dodge some incoming fire and were agile enough to get to cover and avoid a lot of damage MWO mechs cannot do this which results in faster deaths especially for new players.

Edited by PappySmurf, 10 April 2014 - 10:15 AM.

[Mechteric]

PappySmurf, on 10 April 2014 - 10:08 AM, said:

Thanks for adding that quote back in. All previous PC MechWarrior games had a Alpha-Shot in the game but there was a major difference the Older PC MechWarrior games weapons were more balanced and not so pinpoint accurate. The older weapons would do more effect damage like knock downs=LRMS or shake/fuzz=PPC's, ETC but not just total destruction all at once.

MWO'S weapons are pinpoint damage that make the game terrible and when your hit by a group of players all at once the result is a 1 shot kill. Even in the older PC games being hit by 1-4 players did not result in a 1 shot kill unless players were hacking the game or playing NHUA=NO heat=Unlimited Ammo games.

Another problem with MWO is the mechs are walking targets after lights. Mediums, Heavies and assaults are so lethargic compared to previous PC MechWarrior games its crazy making them huge targets.Older PC MechWarrior mechs could actually dodge some incoming fire and were agile enough to get to cover and avoid a lot of damage MWO mechs cannot do this which results in faster deaths especially for new players.

You may be missing some key factors:

- Mechwarrior 4 had the same pinpoint accurate weapons, actually more because all lasers did their damage just like PPCs and Gauss.

- Mechwarrior 4 had a much bigger poptart problem because there was not jump shake and even heavy/assaults with jets could jump rather high compared to MWO.

- Mechwarrior 2 and 3 multiplayer were not very network efficient, you had to lag shoot. So yeah you didn't hit as much as you do in MWO because of lag (like MWO in Beta).


BUT they all had respawn so people felt like they could run in, get killed quickly, then come right back and still think they were having fun. No respawn games are not for those sorts of people (I'm not saying MWO needs respawn, just saying it leads to different gameplay styles).

[PappySmurf]

Well CapperDeluxe I might have used the wrong word=(Pinpoint Damage Weapons) I should have said MechWarrio2-4 weapons did not have the =(OverPowered) effect MWO weapons do unless you were playing =NHUA with the MechWarrior4 Mercenaries Mektek mod.
I think the weapons in MW2-MW4 were more centered around weapons effects that actual massive 1 shot damage capability's.

And to me that's what MWO feels like when I play=(NHUA with the MechWarrior4 Mercenaries Mektek mod.) when I would have preferred the weapons balance and power of MW2-MW4 weapons.If you were playing MW2-MW4 back then you would remember how mechs could take some real damage even under concentrated fire.Most times even a simple mistake in tactics or logistics in a battle would not result in instant death like in MWO.

And yes I liked to play No-Respawn and Respawn in many varied leagues.So I do think MWO should have both modes of game play.

Edited by PappySmurf, 10 April 2014 - 03:34 PM.

[Col Jaime Wolf]

Rename, on 23 March 2014 - 08:23 AM, said:

You guys sound like those old ladies from the land of no were, always giving opinions on which they reflect their shitty life, in this case, your shitty play-style.

Well, not for all. there are good ideas, but only some bunch in the middle of a thousand, that want to open their mouthful in desperation for success, I'm not going to specify which because I'm a no man party.

Trust more in the developers, if more trust were given to the developers from the start, this mess probably were not be seen.

Now we are starting to watch our motivation filled with bandages and patches trying to hide the trash that was made for the[redacted] mind consumer.

If you can't beat the world don't, join it.

So the sooner we start to trust in the developers the faster they reach their goal and their ideal game they had in mind.

Remember, if it were not for the developers we have here, this game would never existed!, And I remember pretty well all those days I dreamed for a new game when playing mercenaries and watching fan made videos.

The potential for this game is great.

give it time young padawan. give it time. you will see the horror.