24 replies to this topic

[Razvee]

Hello everyone.

This is my first post on these forums, as i've stopped just on reading untill now. However, one thing concerns me alot.

I'm sure that most of you have played MechWarrior 4. Well, in that game, the damage feels, just, very unbalanced.

As i'm redoing the game campaign, i've made it to the mission where you just have to hunt those Harrasers and Condors.
Myself, i am a light mech lover, but i'm afraid that MechWarrior 4 does not encourage this kind of enjoyment. Hitting the hovertanks, 2 Medium Lasers and 1 Large Lasers did the trick... untill the big bad guy appeared, Duncan Burke. Well, he pretty much owned me and my beloved Raven, although i was circling at about 110kmph. I simply could not do significant damage, in order for him to FEEL it. It took me about 10 hits with my large laser and some CSTRK6's to just... do 30-40% on his torso (spread all over, mouse aiming is very very enjoyful), while he hit me twice with his PPC's and just, transformed me into fireworks for his Birthday.

What i'm trying to say here, is that alot of you saw the MechWarrior 4 intro. Myself, i was stunned. So the basic idea i'm trying to point here, is that weapons should DO damage. I mean, 4 mediums lasers can do ... NOTHING against a Medium / Heavy mech in MechWarrior 4.

What i would want, is to know that if he hits my Raven, i would probably suffer capital damage, or i will be badly damaged indeed. This would make the emotion of the gameplay very intense, as you know that if you're dumb, you are going to suffer. Still, if i manage to fire some well placed shots, he is going to feel it, just as the Raven Battlemech story.

Thank you for the time of reading this.

~Razvee

Edited by Razvee, 08 June 2012 - 10:41 AM.

[Frostiken]

Well, medium lasers have always been somewhat overpowered as they were in CBT.

MWLL elected to make them weigh 2 tons each, which is pretty reasonable for their range / heat / damage setup. Wouldn't be surprised if MW4 was working with damage-limited medium lasers.

Edited by Frostiken, 08 June 2012 - 10:47 AM.

[SuomiWarder]

Well, all I can say is that the devs seem to be using the table top rules on damage so 4 medium lasers is 20 damage, the same damage as an AC/20 hit. Although they lasers do their damage over a bit of time so you need to keep the beams on the same body part to get all 20 damage in the same armor place. Three or four blasts of 20 damage to the same body part should destroy that part on almost everything in the game.

[TriggerhappySOB]

The thing Ive been happy with so far from the previews, is regardless what youre driving, a medium laser is a medium laser and a ton of armor is a ton of armor. So that jenner with four medium lasers is going to be able to do as much damage as the atlas with its four medium lasers. So If the devs follow the TT rules, then the medium lasers are going be just as effective as theyre supposed to be. I too was disappointed that I was forced to get L Lasers to do any signifigant damage, so im happy to see the old rules come back.
\

[Razvee]

Still this isn't what we're talking about in MechWarrior 4. I mean, you stand NO chance if you don't have a long range setup on one of your lancemates, and you were out scouting. There was another mission, i just went ahead scouting... i managed to live... 45 seconds. About that's all. So yeah.. i sure will enjoy the game if i will be able to RUN and DAMAGE with my Raven.

Thank you for the input!
~Razvee

[cynicalyouth]

A medium laser being a medium laser regardless of the mech its equipped on is one of the biggest draws for me and something that I think will help lead to diverse games with lots of different mechs in them.

[Razvee]

Well indeed, i truly enjoy games where you really have the feeling that what you're doing counts. I hate not being able to play my favourite style just because i will not enjoy the game, being killed, owned, and so on. I truly love scouting/sniping, so that's my favourite role in every game.. so if you catch me in, you can damn bet i will help my team, because in a light mech, without teamplay, you can just... head for the exit button

~Razvee

Edited by Razvee, 08 June 2012 - 11:04 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

in MW4 the medium laser was highly damaging for its weight, however the point of this article is that a single light mech cannot take down a Heavy mech and will have trouble with a medium.

the reasons for this are simple, a heavy mech ways at least 60 tonnes, a light weighs at most 35, so even the smallest heavy mechs have double the armor and firepower of a light mech, while the light is much faster, for a light to kill a heavy requires a highly skilled pilot

simply put a Raven is not designed to kill mechs, it is designed to provide support to other mechs. the way this game seems to be designed is for you to form a lance (team), this lance would benefit from a range of roles, while an atlas lance would decimate everything that came into range, lighter mechs would stay out of range and pick them off at long range or call for more mechs to help, and the atlas lance would not have any tricks other than armor and firepower.

if you want to pilot a raven that is no problem, team up with people who like heavier mechs and play to the Ravens strengths, but do not go hunting anything bigger than you without support

[WardenWolf]

Keep in mind that MW4 was, primarily, a single player game. The campaign was designed to bring you from a lance of light mechs at the beginning up to a pair of assault or heavy lances by the end-game. There is no way to play through it with a light the whole time!

MWO, however, is a MMO from the beginning... and the devs have emphatically stated that they are balancing it around role warfare. I still would not advise going toe-to-toe with an Atlas if you are in a Jenner. Instead you can scout the Atlas, harass him and keep him occupied, and then your lancemate's Catapult lays into him with LRMs and you finish him off with some well-placed mLaser shots. That is how I see MWO working from the videos and other info released so far

[Toothman]

TriggerhappySOB, on 08 June 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

The thing Ive been happy with so far from the previews, is regardless what youre driving, a medium laser is a medium laser and a ton of armor is a ton of armor. So that jenner with four medium lasers is going to be able to do as much damage as the atlas with its four medium lasers. So If the devs follow the TT rules, then the medium lasers are going be just as effective as theyre supposed to be. I too was disappointed that I was forced to get L Lasers to do any signifigant damage, so im happy to see the old rules come back.
\

Only if all recharge times are 10 seconds, which I'm pretty sure they are not. 10 second recharge time in a video game is a very very long and not a whole lot of fun.

Edited by Toothman, 08 June 2012 - 11:10 AM.

[Razvee]

Rogue Jedi, on 08 June 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

in MW4 the medium laser was highly damaging for its weight, however the point of this article is that a single light mech cannot take down a Heavy mech and will have trouble with a medium.

the reasons for this are simple, a heavy mech ways at least 60 tonnes, a light weighs at most 35, so even the smallest heavy mechs have double the armor and firepower of a light mech, while the light is much faster, for a light to kill a heavy requires a highly skilled pilot

simply put a Raven is not designed to kill mechs, it is designed to provide support to other mechs. the way this game seems to be designed is for you to form a lance (team), this lance would benefit from a range of roles, while an atlas lance would decimate everything that came into range, lighter mechs would stay out of range and pick them off at long range or call for more mechs to help, and the atlas lance would not have any tricks other than armor and firepower.

if you want to pilot a raven that is no problem, team up with people who like heavier mechs and play to the Ravens strengths, but do not go hunting anything bigger than you without support

Of course. But if you take MechWarrior 4, and you catch a ShadowCat in a Raven, you can simply log off, because chances of doing significant damage with medium lasers, are very low. I also understand that you won't have many chances fighting an Atlas in a Raven, unless you're really experienced, and you might aswell live another 10 seconds to tell the story via IGC. But leading enemy mechs into an ambush, is much more favorable for a light mech. Tactics will do play a big role in this game, and i understand it. But i don't wanna feel that if my lances are dead, i won't even be able to "yellow up" enemy's arm.

WardenWolf, on 08 June 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

Keep in mind that MW4 was, primarily, a single player game. The campaign was designed to bring you from a lance of light mechs at the beginning up to a pair of assault or heavy lances by the end-game. There is no way to play through it with a light the whole time!

MWO, however, is a MMO from the beginning... and the devs have emphatically stated that they are balancing it around role warfare. I still would not advise going toe-to-toe with an Atlas if you are in a Jenner. Instead you can scout the Atlas, harass him and keep him occupied, and then your lancemate's Catapult lays into him with LRMs and you finish him off with some well-placed mLaser shots. That is how I see MWO working from the videos and other info released so far

That's what i want to feel about this game. Thank you for answering my questions. Best of luck getting into beta!

~Razvee

Edited by Razvee, 08 June 2012 - 11:15 AM.

[AdamantVallation]

I'm not sure how I feel on this issue. On hand you've got game balance issues, if light mechs suck, then no one will drive them as soon as they can afford better. On the other, the heavy and assault mechs are supposed to be the kings of the battle field. The I will really need to see how the different roles play out, and how useful they are in this game.

[Adrienne Vorton]

mechwarrior 4 was somewhat unbalanced thats true...it focussed too much on heavy stuff, making lights more of a "start the campaign easy and grind your way up"..

BUT...MW4 is no comparison to MWO, since it focusses on the tabletop rules... and it´s not rarely seen that a cicada with 4 m-lasers does serious damage on a heavy mech, without being hit for a long time ...

what I am trying to say is...MW4 was too much an arcade game to compare it with actual BT gameplay and/ or a sim based on that ^^

Edited by Adrienne Vorton, 08 June 2012 - 11:20 AM.

[Razvee]

Well, don't jump on me. I always loved 'Mech games, but i never went so deep, as into tabletop games. A quick description about it would be fine.

And yes, i know it should differ... but i needed to know it from people that have more experience than me. We've all started low, right?

Thank you.

Edited by Razvee, 08 June 2012 - 11:27 AM.

[Kobold]

In a straight up fight, a Raven shouldn't be defeating a heavy, most of the time. Sure he'll get his licks in, but I would expect, assuming equally skilled pilots, for the heavy to win 75% of the time or more (with the remainder of those losses mostly due to headshots, or the Raven's ability to find cover to hide behind while circling in for rear shots).

[GHQCommander]

Lasers melt metal.

If you think about this game in a realistic way, it just does not work. Not a mech on the battlefield would walk away, it would be too dangerous to keep moving them due to the damage they would receive.

So don't think in realistic terms. This game is about PvP, smart and skilled players shooting other players big chasis with plenty armour. It can't all end as quick as it would if they applied realism.

AdamantVallation, on 08 June 2012 - 11:13 AM, said:

I'm not sure how I feel on this issue. On hand you've got game balance issues, if light mechs suck, then no one will drive them as soon as they can afford better. On the other, the heavy and assault mechs are supposed to be the kings of the battle field. The I will really need to see how the different roles play out, and how useful they are in this game.

There will be balance issues to start with, always is.

They need to see how it all plays out in teams and large groups. We're talking balance issues about a game we have not played yet, we will be talking about balance issues in a year. Usually takes that long for it to start working just right.

Be pretty cool if balance was spot on to start with though, that would probably attract players on its own.

[00dlez]

As others have stated, MW4 is not MWO. The Robinon Rangers have generated a custrom mech pack of "canon variants" for MW4, meaning thier weapons and armor were calibratedto match the tabletop varients. AS a result, mechs rarely used a majority of their available tonnage. Atlas' used only 60 of their 100 tons to achieve their classic loadouts, etc etc. MW4 was designed around the concept of "moar laz0rz and gunnnz lolololo" - from what we understand, this will not be the case in MWO, which is role and information based gameplay.

That said, you still won't be able to rush your Raven into a firefight and expect to last long. Different mechs will have different roles on the battlefield and circle straffing in a light will be all fun and games until your leg takes an AC/20 shot from a not so pleased Hunchback that you could have dominated in MW4.

[Solis Obscuri]

Most previous MW campaign modes have emphasized "graduating" into heavier and heavier machines to fight through larger and heavier waves of enemies. Simply put, a Raven isn't meant to solo a combined-arms company, it's designed as an excellent scouting and EW platform with a bit of close-range punch. But because tanking through waves of enemies was what those MW campaigns were about, good scout platforms became undesirable pretty fast.

In MWO, the game is launching with team PvP only, and an emphasis on role warfare, which makes scouting and reconnaissance a vital component of success on the battlefield. So instead of having to stand toe-to-toe with a heavier enemy and duke it out, a light unit like a Raven would have a good chance of coming in undetected, hitting the enemy's flank with some harassing fire to distract it a moment, then ducking behind cover while calling in indirect fire support from a few friendly Catapults to soften it up a bit (the way the CCAF intended ), before popping up again for another ambush run.

I'm really eager to see how it all works out in-game, and I think, as a light pilot, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the direction the game is taking.

[Frostiken]

Solis Obscuri, on 08 June 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

I'm really eager to see how it all works out in-game, and I think, as a light pilot, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the direction the game is taking.

My biggest concern there is picking a Jenner for your founder mech and then finding out you don't like the Light gameplay :[

[Adrienne Vorton]

Solis Obscuri, on 08 June 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

Most previous MW campaign modes have emphasized "graduating" into heavier and heavier machines to fight through larger and heavier waves of enemies. Simply put, a Raven isn't meant to solo a combined-arms company, it's designed as an excellent scouting and EW platform with a bit of close-range punch. But because tanking through waves of enemies was what those MW campaigns were about, good scout platforms became undesirable pretty fast.

In MWO, the game is launching with team PvP only, and an emphasis on role warfare, which makes scouting and reconnaissance a vital component of success on the battlefield. So instead of having to stand toe-to-toe with a heavier enemy and duke it out, a light unit like a Raven would have a good chance of coming in undetected, hitting the enemy's flank with some harassing fire to distract it a moment, then ducking behind cover while calling in indirect fire support from a few friendly Catapults to soften it up a bit (the way the CCAF intended ), before popping up again for another ambush run.

I'm really eager to see how it all works out in-game, and I think, as a light pilot, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the direction the game is taking.

amen, your words in Blakes ears