131 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Wintersdark, on 22 March 2014 - 11:03 AM, said:

No.

They've even explicitly said they weren't going to, though I can't link that (I'm lazy, and don't keep such reference info).

The stats wipe was for Achievements, and it totally unrelated to Elo (as your Elo score has no bearing on your stats). They've said from the earliest days whenever they talked about achievements that when they were implemented they'd do a statwipe.

Actually Paul did say they were resetting it, but it would be broad strokes, so there would be some general Elo separation still, but yes, Elo was indeed affected with the stats wipe. And just like you I am currently too lazy to scroll through all the NGNG, Twitter and Forum posts to pull out the exact comment.

And your Elo does involve stats, specifically your W/L ratio.

Which is one reason that Elo is largely pointless in this setting,as W/L is specifically a result of team play, not one's individual contribution (and individual stats would just lead to more epeen and stat whoring, which in turn is not always conducive to the needs of the team, hence Elo is just an idiotic idea for MWO, period)

Wintersdark, on 22 March 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

B: Cost a lot more artist time building FS-specific PPC models.

It would not have cost more. In fact it would cost less, because they would not even be changing or resizing the existing art asset. They would literally be "taping" on part or all of the "generic model" they are using.

And the even more egregious sin is Lasers. .5 ton Small laser, or 7 ton Large Pulse, all exactly the same sized little box and lense. Total bullcrap.

[Bishop Steiner]

Wintersdark, on 22 March 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

I didn't say it looked good, I said it conformed to their "artistic vision"... well, that and their art budget.

Having properly sized PPC's on said firestarter would have:

A: Looked awesome
B: Cost a lot more artist time building FS-specific PPC models.

ohh.... attack of the Megamans!!!!! I would so pay for that.....

[Sybreed]

Wintersdark, on 22 March 2014 - 10:52 AM, said:

Current OP boats disappear. New OP builds would arise. Without knowing what everything has and time to experiment, I can't say what off hand. I can't really even guess at a self-imposed size system, as I'd need to look at it as a whole (every mech and all their sizes)

But in the end, whichever mech can mount the most of whichever weapons are best at a given time will rise to the top, and everything else with their balanced builds becomes crap. It's sad, but inevitable.

well, you said Bishop is so passionate by the issue that he is blind to other issues that would arise, but your argument gives the same impression as well! I appreciate you play the devil's advocate, but if the better argument you can come up with is "I'm pretty sure it ain't gonna be better" then it's not a very serious opposition

Edited by Sybreed, 22 March 2014 - 11:56 AM.

[Koniving]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 March 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

oh please don't get me started. Want ridiculous, mount a PPC on a Firestarter, then show it next to an Awesome or Jagermech. How they can spend so much time on weapon models, then go do EXTRA time and pooch their scaling (hey PGI here's a thought? Wanna reuse assets? Then make the weapons all one consistent size and find ways to stash thmon the mechs.)

Check the dates of the quotes, those weren't available at the time.

[Koniving]

ExAstris, on 22 March 2014 - 10:33 AM, said:

Love or hate the rest of the game, MW4's hardpoint system really was the best iteration MechWarrior has seen.

Frankly, MWO has trouble differentiating mechs already. So while hardpoint sizes would necessarily cut down on customization, it would pile heaps of individuality on each chassis, and make room for a lot more diversification as well.

I will counter this. The 60 threshold of the original MW4 is why they needed it. Compared to MW3's 30 threshold. Compared to MWO's 40 minimum and MWO's current maximum potential while still carrying an ER PPC on an 80 ton mech:
Heat Threshold : 110.69999999999999 and Cooling Rate : 6.30 heat/sec and here ya go. That'll be the threshold ranges of the Clan mechs, do you don't have to worry about the nerfs preventing them from being overpowered.

110 means stand still, and you can fire 11 PPCs at once without ghost heat. 60 threshold means stand still and you can fire 6 PPCs at once. 40 means you can only fire 4. All of these mean you must fire exactly that many while stationary to shut down. Meanwhile, all that is instant. And you can turn the mech back on immediately after and be nearly ice cold.
Now take a turn in tabletop with a 6 PPC build with 19 DHS, and tell me with a full 10 seconds of cooling, are you powered up after those 10 seconds?

While MW4 had the iteration of hardpoints, the simple fact of the matter is that it was required because of the heat system tweak. But MW3, 30 threshold was your limit. 2 ER PPCs and you shut down, didn't matter how many heatsinks you had. And so you had to chain fire. Space them out over time. The same was true for all the weapons, and the lasers were up-front instant damage. It was the autocannons with their low heat and frequent usability that were damage over time weapons. Sure they are heavy and they had ammo -- but damn it sure beat having to space out and chain fire your shots. But if you wanted to kill quick, you had to score enough lasers to make the high damage hit and keep it just under 30 heat then factor in what you need to run the engine when you try to get outta dodge. In MWO that's 6 ML max (due to the 4 heat), if it was canon's 3 heat then it'd be 7 ML.

So MWO's problem with a 9 ML Hunchback doing two alpha strikes should and would never have happened if PGI didn't bork the core heat system with a rising threshold.

But... That aside. Here's something basic that'd create an incredibly diverse experience.

Do the following for the most diverse, every mech is useful to fill a niche or role sort of gameplay.

• Combine MW3's heat system with MW4's hardpoint limitations.
  
• Replace the engine limitations we have now with 12 ratings above stock (a rating is a "5" interval, so a mech with 340 as a stock engine would reach 400. We'll cut it at 400 for the mechs that have it stock).
  
• Then for each variant stock armor tonnage + 3 tons = new max. (This rule actually makes Ferro armor useful, and inclines the mechs into their lore-specific roles to incredibly increase diversity and practicality. Awesomes would rival and even surpass Stalkers in armor. Check it out, you'd be amazed at what happens).
  
• Remove ghost heat. Then, implement lore-based weapon variants that could allow for certain variants of weapons to slip by hardpoint limitations.
  
• Put all core weapon heat back to canon values.
  
• For weapon variants, stick within the guide lines: Must be core weapon tonnage, core weapon slots, core weapon range for optimum impact, with maximum range as not as a dead stop but the worst barely practical scenario. (Example, a single shot AC/5 falls to the ground at maximum range. A 3 shot burst AC/5 [each shot doing 1.33 damage] might continue on but the shots would be so far apart due to recoil that even if the first one did hit it'd be insignificant).
  
• For weapon variants: Allow weaker, dps-style variants to slip into lower hardpoint brackets while single shot versions climb a bracket higher. Erase single shot AC/20 from existence.
  
  • Example, a 5 shot burst fire AC/10 (AC/10's timeline is 2.5 seconds from first to second firing. So 1 trigger pull = 5 shots at a 3 heat spike and 2 damage each fired 0.22 seconds apart = 1.10 second burst with a 1.4 second cassette/magazine change time) might only be able to mount a medium-sized hardpoint, but a 10 shot auto-fire AC/10 (So full auto; 1 shot every 0.5 seconds at 2 damage and 0.6 heat per shot with advantage of being able to control when you start and stop firing) might slip onto a smaller mech at the risk of having difficulty controlling the recoil. Of course, there could be multi-shot burst-fire variants that might also fit, too.
    
  • A single shot AC/10 is high caliber and might need the large hardpoint along with high caliber AC/20s like the Chemjet Gun (4 shot slow burst) and the Tomodzuru Autocannon Mount Type 20 (5 shot burst).
    
  • Low caliber AC/20s might fit medium-sized hardpoints. like the Crusher Super Heavy Cannon (10 shot burst fire and autofire versions are mentioned in lore; burst fire shoots faster has stronger recoil and takes longer to reload. Auto fire). See spoiler below.
• For AC variants, give single shot autocannons an impressive torso-jerking kick. Multi-shot autocannons various levels of recoil.
  
• For laser variants, implement different styles such as Spartan Laser (Halo; 1 click charge-up delay warning to the target and instant upfront damage with a brief build-up of heat during charge up followed by the actual heatspike), Kirk's Star Trek phaser (constant beam, never ending until overheat; but a cooldown time after letting go to prevent the infinite cold flamer glitch we have now), and current style lasers. Allow variations by having some beam over time lasers to generate more damage per tick at more heat per tick and give visual differentiation by color of laser.
  
  • (Example, there's a "Blue Beam" medium laser that's supposedly much more forceful in its shot but is still a normal medium laser. Since MLs use a four second timer between trigger pulls, if MLs do 10 ticks in a second, the Blue Beam ML variant could do 6 ticks (so a 0.6 second beam for 0.833 damage per tick) and then has the cooldown time of 3.4 seconds. Shorter shot, higher heat spike per 0.1 seconds, slightly longer wait, identical DPS.)
• Optional, remove convergence on torso weapons.
  
• Optional, implement "mech turret tracking" on mechs with turrets.
  
• Optional, allow all mechs to use the "o" crosshair even without lower arm actuators (provides a standardized LRM use to all LRM users) but only for missile tracking not for allowing any arm to track it.

Just some thoughts.

"But Kon -- your weapon variant idea is useless for the 10 shot Crusher is useless compared to the AC/2!"
10 shot Crusher AC/20 (2 damge per shot * 10 = 20 damage) break down and then comparison versus current MWO AC/2.

Spoiler

Koniving, on 30 October 2013 - 09:32 PM, said:

On the other hand, the Crusher is 100% accurate. But there are 3 subvariants of Crusher (made by different competing manufacturers). Info given: One is belt-fed slower firing MG-style (constant rate of fire) and another is a burst-fire magazine fed version. No info on the third sub-variant.

The vid has the burst fire Crusher all figured out. Burst fire weapons will have an equal number of trigger pulls as a single shot weapon. Simply call the trigger pulls "cassettes" or magazines. In MWO 1 ton of ammo gives you 7 shots for a single shot AC/20. For a burst fire AC/20, it gives you 7 cassettes/magazines of x amount of shots each per ton.
The MG-style I figure would work like this:

• To hit 5 DPS (an AC/20's damage rate), the Crusher fire its full amount of shots to deal full damage within the same amount of time it takes the MWO AC/20 to fire and reload, so within 4 seconds. To accomplish this we take the time slice (4) and divide by 10. 4/10 = 0.4 seconds per shot. Remember that the first shot is always at "0" seconds, leaving us with a 0.4 second window after the last shot to reload and start the new damage cycle.
  
  • The mathematically proposed MG-style Crusher variant would fire like this: 0 seconds, bang. 0.4, bang, 0.8, bang, 1.2, bang, 1.6, bang, 2.0, bang, 2.4, bang, 2.8, bang, 3.2, bang, 3.6, bang, 4.0, begin anew with 4 as 0.
    
  • The MWO AC/20 fires like this: 0 seconds. Bang. 1, 2, 3, 4 bang. 1, 2, 3, 4 bang.
    
  • So we've got an identical DPS rate going. Now given Battletech rules, all AC/20s have an identical ideal range. This is reasoned by lore as: "Autocannons range in caliber from 30mm up to 203mm and are loosely grouped according to their damage versus armor. The exact same caliber of shell fired in a 100 shot burst to do 20 damage will have a shorter effective range than when fired in a 10 shot burst to do 2 damage due to recoil and other factors."
    
  • Thus, despite being much smaller shots what prevents it from being super effective at longer ranges isn't that the smaller bullets stop doing full damage beyond 270 but because recoil makes it really difficult to focus the shots.
• But what about heat? According to the lore's rules, all AC/20s produce exactly 7 heat (6 in MWO -- combined with a threshold of 60 or higher is it any wonder it'll never overheat?). Let's figure it for 7 and then 6.
  
  • Figuring for 7 heat, it'll be 0.7 heat generated every 0.4 seconds (every shot) starting at 0. By the time we reach the 10th shot at 3.6 seconds we've made 7 heat.
    
  • Figuring for 6 heat, it'll be 0.6 heat generated every 0.4 seconds (every shot) starting at 0. By the time we reach the 10th shot at 3.6, we've made 6 heat.
    
  • MWO's current AC/20 generates 6 heat at 0 seconds, and doesn't generate another heat spike until 4 seconds later when it fires again.
    
  • Our version's cycle resets at 4 seconds just like MWO's, and thus a new heat rise will begin at 4 seconds.
    
  • Though the MG Crusher's heat will spike much less, it ultimately generates the same amount of heat in the same time loop.
• Now, what about ammo count? Unlike burst fire, MG styles can stop firing at any time!
  
  • For this we take the number of shots the AC/20 requires to do full damage, 10. We multiply that with the number of times a single shot AC/20 can be fired for 1 ton of ammo, 7. 10 shots * 7 = 70 shots per ton.
    
  • For comparison, if 10 shots = 20 damage, then 70 shots = 140 damage. Single shot AC/20, if a single shot does 20 damage and there are 7 shots in a ton, we deal 140 damage. We're equal!
• So what are the pros of the slower firing MG variant over the faster firing burst variant?
  
  • No pauses in firing rate.
    
  • Control over your ammunition, you don't lose 10 shots just because you got spooked and pulled the trigger.
    
  • Could, in theory, use 'tamed' fire control to effectively treat the Crusher like an unsteady 14 ton AC/2. But likely PGI would crush this concept.
    
  • Smoothly spread out heat spikes allow better control over heat generation.
    
  • Ability to space out shots to make them count and last.
    
  • An MG style AC/20 is ready to put a round down range at any time.
• What are the cons of using the MG variant over the Burst variant (what makes the burst better)?
  
  • The MG variant would/should have a tougher time handling recoil as its constant even if mild, where the burst fire is hit strong and stop.
    
  • Burst fire ACs would have a much easier time concentrating a lot of fire power in close to one spot very quickly for pop-and-shoot fire. MG styles take considerable time to accomplish this and need a constant line of sight.
    
  • Because burst fire (and single shot) AC/20s have to wait to reload, they are given time to 'rest' and cool off rapidly. An MG style doesn't have any real time to rest and so it's constantly fighting against its cooling.
    
  • Burst fire AC/20s would sound cooler due to ejecting magazine sounds.

But, what about comparing the Crusher with MWO's AC/2?

MG-style Crusher Super Heavy Autocannon/20 versus MWO's single shot AC/2.
Firing rates.
Crusher: 1 shot per 0.4 seconds.
AC/2: 1 shot per 0.52 seconds.
Damage.
Crusher: 2 per shot
AC/2: 2 per shot.
Range.
Crusher: 270 optimum.
AC/2: 720 optimum.
Recoil.
Crusher: Mild jerks.
AC/2: Next to none.
Weapon heat (per shot).
Crusher: 0.7
AC/2: 1.0
Weapon weight.
Crusher: 14 tons, 10 slots.
AC/2: 6 tons, 1 slot.
Ammunition.
Crusher: 70 shots per ton. (With my threshold fix and lower ammo counts, 50.)
AC/2: 75 shots per ton. (With my threshold fix and lower ammo counts, 45.)
Weapon health (based on MWO values).
Crusher: 18 health (but easier to damage due to slots)
AC/2: 10 health (very difficult to damage)

So as you can see there are pros and cons either way. And so long as the core rules are followed, no variant will ever be inherently superior to another in every situation.

The implementation of recoil would also give a mentioned upcoming feature, crouching, a genuine function as you could crouch to reduce recoil.

Hope you enjoyed!

[Mister Blastman]

NO.

The problem is and has always been convergence since the dawn of Mechwarrior 3.

[Sybreed]

the problem with a high dissipation low heat threshold system is that PGI's weapon cooldowns are so low, you wouldn't ever need to stack multiple weapons. If weapon CDs are increased, then having more weapons would make sense, as you would use one groups CD to fire another group and you cool off between each group fires.

Mister Blastman, on 22 March 2014 - 12:00 PM, said:

NO.

The problem is and has always been convergence since the dawn of Mechwarrior 3.

how does convergence affect LRMs?

Please enlighten me.

[Mister Blastman]

Sybreed, on 22 March 2014 - 12:03 PM, said:

how does convergence affect LRMs?

Please enlighten me.

It doesn't, smartass. It affects everything else.

[Mawai]

Peekaboo I C JU, on 22 March 2014 - 08:47 AM, said:

if the hardpoint are sized, it kills customization, as the choices are already made for you

I'd disagree. It doesn't kill customization but it limits it.

Split energy hard points into:
Large - PPC, ERPPC, LL, ERLL, LPL
Small - ML, SL, SPL, MPL, FT
Omni Energy - any energy weapon

A Stalker could then be given - one omni, 2 large, 3 small or 2 omni and 4 small ... or some other combination.

Similarly missile launchers could be split the same way
Large - LRM20, LRM15, SRM6, SRM4
Small - LRM10 LRM5, SRM4, SRM2, SSRM2
Omni Missile - any missile launcher

(yes I repeated SRM4 ... there is no reason certain weapons could not be accommodated in multiple hard point sizes ).
And ballistics:

Large - AC20, AC10, Gauss Rifle
Small - AC5, AC2, MG
Omni - any ballistic

Then you could go over the mechs and categorize the hard points with an eye to limiting the opportunities for large scale boating while still allowing for some boating. This sort of system would allow AC5 and AC10 to be combined for example ... but you probably would not have 4xAC5 builds.

--------------------

Anyway, I think the OP is talking about balance and balance is a combination of the weapons, the mechs, the hard points AND the code - hit registration, host state rewind, netcode. This latter is extremely important. PPCs used to be terribad ... awful, they were buffed to compensate, then the developer added host state rewind and made some netcode fixes, suddenly folks could hit with PPCs! They were now really quite overpowered. After nerfing the PPCs several times ... guess what .. they are back at their original values of 10 damage and 10 heat for PPCs and 10 damage and 15 heat for ERPPCs.

The point is that balance is dynamic ... as they develop the game the balance shifts for more reasons than just mechs and weapons and so they always have to be revisiting the weapon balance issue (something they are typically very slow at doing).

In any case, I think sized hard points could be used to limit some of the most egregious builds while not really limiting customization that much. They could also be used to add more character between variants to make it really worthwhile to have more than one (beyond the xp requirements).

Edited by Mawai, 22 March 2014 - 12:14 PM.

[Dock Steward]

Is it even feasible to change hardpoints at this stage in the game? The devs can't even change LRM speed without massive gripe...

[Eddrick]

Wintersdark, on 22 March 2014 - 09:10 AM, said:

Bishop, you're absolutely right about the problem. However, hard point sizes have their own inherent problems.

First and foremost, it effectively does kill customization. Generally speaking, most players can only use 3 weapon groups effectively, maybe 4. So, there needs to be a level of boating to cram diverse weapon types into usable groups.

Second, you end up with a similar situation where perhaps you're not boating 4 Big Guns, and instead you're boating Little Guns. The end result is going to be the same though, and tears will flow.

I'd comfortably say most players don't give two s**ts what mechs where designed for in tabletop, And put zero value on that. Further many of those designs/roles didn't work in TT and/or wouldn't work in MWO. It'd make more chassis than now "useless" (you know what I mean by that). An anti-air fire support mech has no place in mwo at all, for example. Stock - or even remotely stock-ish - Jagermechs would be so terrible as to be totally worthless here.

Keeping hard point types but adding hard point sizes would utterly ruin the game for me, personally. Mech customization is more fun than actual gameplay for me

Removing types but adding sizes presents substantial gameplay balance problems and would require major art changes. Its just not going to happen, too major a change to what people have invested many dollars in. Balance changes are expected, but massive changes to how they work? Not so much.

I agree that the game would probably be better if it had started that way, or at least since Open Beta, but its just too late now.

Isn't overcoming piloting difficulties the responsability of the Pilot and not the person that made it? If you operate any current combat vehicle, you have to adapt to it. Not adjust it to you.

People not being able to adjust to something difficult is just an excuse.

[Bishop Steiner]

Dock Steward, on 22 March 2014 - 12:14 PM, said:

Is it even feasible to change hardpoints at this stage in the game? The devs can't even change LRM speed without massive gripe...

Feasible? Yes. But they would have to put on their big girl panties, bite the bullet and endure the crapstorm. And then, like every other crapstorm, it would blow over, the non metarapists and serial QQers would realize the game is a heck of a lot more interesting, and life would go on. But the initial hit would hurt.

[Wintersdark]

Eddrick, on 22 March 2014 - 12:47 PM, said:

Isn't overcoming piloting difficulties the responsability of the Pilot and not the person that made it? If you operate any current combat vehicle, you have to adapt to it. Not adjust it to you.

Except this is a game, and one in which people have bought combat vehicles that they could adapt to them - that's been a key feature of the game since going public. I say going public, as opposed to "Launch", as they've been taking people's real money for these products the whole time... and while game balance may change, making such fundamental changes to what people have purchased is a really major deal.

Bishop Steiner, on 22 March 2014 - 12:51 PM, said:

Feasible? Yes. But they would have to put on their big girl panties, bite the bullet and endure the crapstorm. And then, like every other crapstorm, it would blow over, the non metarapists and serial QQers would realize the game is a heck of a lot more interesting, and life would go on. But the initial hit would hurt.

There will still be a meta, every bit as much as now, and there will be every bit as many "metarapists" and serial QQ'ers. None of that would change.

They could do it, of course. They can do anything the feel like doing.

But they won't. It's too big, too late.

For better or worse =/

I think the same of Koniving's heat system changes. I think just implementing a low cap high dissipation heat model would fix a whole freaking lot of problems with the game, but they won't do that either.

*sighs*

I should just step out of this discussion. I'm old, tired, and cynical, and while I understand the value of such ideas - and agree with many, to some degree or other - I just don't think anything so "core" to the game as it stands is going to change.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

An alternative is to increase hardpoint counts on certain weapons themselves.

For example, certain weapons such as the AC/20, ER/LL, ER/PPC and so on could require two Ballistic/Energy Hardpoints each to mount along with their Crit Slot requirements (other weapons could get an increase too as necessary). That could provide soft limits as to how many of those weapons mechs can mount (and any mech like the CTF-1X, for example, that currently only has two energy slots in the right arm could simply add a third energy hardpoint to accommodate the stock PPC and ML, if ER/PPCs would require more hardpoints per weapon).

Then Missile weapons could be capped at a max allowed missile tube count, so say a section could have a max of 10 tubes, then you can only mount an LRM 10, but if that section has two or three missile hardpoints then you could do a mix of SSRMs and/or SRMs capped at 10. That could also help with being able to improve weapons further as necessary, and reduce the incidence of absurd builds (It's just ironic that we got the Stalker Champion, discussing these sorts of ideas, that build would have to change).



I'd like to see a hybrid of having sizes on hardpoints along with increasing the hardpoint counts on individual weapons and limiting missiles to tube counts could help.

The key is having these measures as soft counters to allow builds some freedom, but also make sense within the BT universe.

And I don't understand how this in anyway affects e-sports related issues since all players will be adapting to such changes and private matches could then further have more control options set for those matches.

[Bishop Steiner]

Wintersdark, on 22 March 2014 - 01:01 PM, said:

Except this is a game, and one in which people have bought combat vehicles that they could adapt to them - that's been a key feature of the game since going public. I say going public, as opposed to "Launch", as they've been taking people's real money for these products the whole time... and while game balance may change, making such fundamental changes to what people have purchased is a really major deal.


There will still be a meta, every bit as much as now, and there will be every bit as many "metarapists" and serial QQ'ers. None of that would change.

They could do it, of course. They can do anything the feel like doing.

But they won't. It's too big, too late.

For better or worse =/

I think the same of Koniving's heat system changes. I think just implementing a low cap high dissipation heat model would fix a whole freaking lot of problems with the game, but they won't do that either.

*sighs*

I should just step out of this discussion. I'm old, tired, and cynical, and while I understand the value of such ideas - and agree with many, to some degree or other - I just don't think anything so "core" to the game as it stands is going to change.

I have played games where the meta was pretty unintrusive. Yes there will always be some things that are better than others, that called perfect imbalance, and it actually desirable, but it should not, nor is there any excuse for such a clear cut, mandatory meta as MWO has run almost since it's inception. So we really have 2 options, except completely horrible balance, and just embrace a new flavor of the month whenever Paul gets annoyed by the QQ, or push for them to do what is needed, and make that hard, fundamental change that actually will minimize the issues.

Just because there is no perfect answer is no excuse to continue to foment such an obviously flawed one as PGI is doing.

[Mizore]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 March 2014 - 12:51 PM, said:

Feasible? Yes. But they would have to put on their big girl panties, bite the bullet and endure the crapstorm. And then, like every other crapstorm, it would blow over, the non metarapists and serial QQers would realize the game is a heck of a lot more interesting, and life would go on. But the initial hit would hurt.

This was suggested to PGI when the Gausscat was a real problem, but they didn't listen... instead of fixing the broken (not existing) hardpoint sizes, they fixed the gauss cannon, which was only the minor problem.

Even when 6xPPC Stalkers were common, they didn't listen... I guess now it's maybe too late to change this.

Hell, I even think it would be the best, if they started again from the closed beta and design many things totally new:
- larger maps with many objectives (sensor control, rearm bay, repair bay, small bases,...)
- drop limitations
- role warfare
- hardpoint sizes
- real weapon balancing (not the joke we have now!)
- ECM and indirect LRM fire like in MW:LL
- more game modes

Edited by Mizore, 22 March 2014 - 01:42 PM.

[LORD TSARKON]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 March 2014 - 11:32 AM, said:

ohh.... attack of the Megamans!!!!! I would so pay for that.....

Lulz My Death Knell has a ER PPC.... this is too funny...

I wish Koniving and Bishop Steiner's ideas could be at least tested or we could have Individual Servers to try this stuff out (like a Real PC game would have)..

PGI started out as a mod team... its too bad they wont let another team "Mod" their game to make it better (more enjoyable)..

Mister Blastman, on 22 March 2014 - 12:00 PM, said:

NO.

The problem is and has always been convergence since the dawn of Mechwarrior 3.

I agree in that this is the number 1 problem of the game that PGI will never figure out...

[Nikijih]

I keep seeing people say that the current hardpoint system offers "tremendous variety". Am I the only one thinking the opposite? More and more mechs have so many hardpoints that you are limited by heat more than by number of weapons you can take aboard. Add the variant system, and nearly any chassis can run any build, with the only difference being in the location of those hardpoints. Frankly it makes this game really repetitive and dull after a while. Why grind for a new mech when I can run any build I might think of for it on my current mastered chassis anyway?

[Zolaz]

Not all mechs have all of those hard points. The game would be about 100 times better as stock mechs and less pin point convergence. However, PGI has no interest in that. All PGI wants is your money. PGI, will say and do the least amount they need to get as much of it as they can.

[Sybreed]

Mister Blastman, on 22 March 2014 - 12:09 PM, said:

It doesn't, smartass. It affects everything else.

okay, but, you know, the title says:

LRMS ARE FINE, AS HAS BEEN THE CASE SINCE INCEPTION, THE HARDPOINT SYSTEM IS WHAT IS BROKEN.


just sayin'