30 replies to this topic

[Roadbeer]

Great topic!

I would like to add the lack of a mechanic for groups to play together/against each other. 4 player 12 player caps are bad and they should feel bad for dragging it out like this for so long (over 500 temporary days)

[Joseph Mallan]

ArmandTulsen, on 22 April 2014 - 12:46 AM, said:

I can't believe people are in favour of the Gauss charge.....

lol.....

Its not so much as we are in favor of it... But it does explain the 60 meter minimum, and fits that role pretty well... now as to the Gauss being a Sniper Weapon... The delay is a bad bad mechanic. So which is the Gauss? A Long Range Cannon(charging ok)? Or a Sniper weapon(charging bad)?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 22 April 2014 - 09:02 AM.

[Phlinger]

This is only an idea, throwing it out there for Problem 1.

Why not make the power source decide what weapons could be fired and when. Everything has a point system allocation, per se.

Engine size /5 = total points per 10 second interval, points refresh after 10 seconds.
Weapon damage+weight/2 = point value
Weapons keep current internal cooldown and refresh rates.

This could be tweaked to prevent massive Alpha's to allocate no more than a set number of weapons per chasis can be fired simultaneously. I.E. Mechss designed for 12 Med lasers can fire them, but in staggered amounts.

Just a thought.

[Pygar]

GalaxyBluestar, on 21 April 2014 - 07:40 PM, said:

LOL

Lately I have been enjoying the game more than ever- my biggest gripes right now are mostly product pricing and c-bill farming related...I'd like for PGI to ease up on the costs of their MC stuff (or at least be less stingy with paintjobs...I wouldn't be at all surprised if most of my MC has gone to paints and paint jobs so far), and for them to look into more rewards for doing stuff in matches.

Edited by Pygar, 22 April 2014 - 09:13 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

AntiCitizenJuan, on 22 April 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

Its almost like every single meta build in the past year included the Gauss Rifle and not the PPC

wait a second

actually, it's kinda like every single meta has been built around FLD..... and what is easiest to use at the time......
Which is why the meta was Gauss first...until Gauss required effort to use. And even PPCs have fallen in use number because oh yeah, the projectile is laughably slow and they run ultrahot that you have to plan around a LOT of cooldown.
Maybe if people stopped huddling and wetting themselves and took advantage of that, it would be less the meta. But yo know, if yo let a Poptart sit and cool for 5-6 seconds between shots, heat ain't an issue.

So where is the actual problem? The PPC, or the Poptart meta with perfect convergence? Instead of nerfing symptoms maybe it's time to address the actual problem.

[Almond Brown]

ArmandTulsen, on 22 April 2014 - 12:46 AM, said:

I can't believe people are in favour of the Gauss charge.....

lol.....

Well damn. I couldn't believe it wasn't Butter either. But there it was written in ledgeble text.

[Sybreed]

Aright, so I said yesterday I would talk about ECM and the Gauss charge, so here it goes. I also need to bring precision to the heat rework and hardpoint sizes ideas.

Problem #5

ECM and the (lack of) information warfare

Interestingly enough, the lack of info warfare can be directly related to the maps layout in MWO. The movement patterns are so obvious and the maps so small, there is simply no need to have a robust info warfare system as the only info you really need is mech positions and armament..

While one big reason we lack info warfare is the smallish maps (note: Bigger maps would perhaps require adding respawns, as it is simply not much fun to spawn, die, then start all over in an entirely different match), the other reason is that PGI never really put much work into the radar system in MWO. While the BT fans could explain this a lot better than I do, there's supposed to be an active and passive mode in MW. What we currently have is a very arcadey always active but also passive mode where LoS is king. What this also meant is that LRMs were also dumbed down, because you could always shoot them as long as you maintained lock. When PGI introduced ECM, we were in a sort of LRMgeddon but not a total apocalypse, and instead of following canon, they went completely overboard with how powerful ECM is. It's a toggable system that doesn't require any effort to use, only weights 1.5 tons (right? not sure) and completely counters guided missiles. Canonically, ECM is supposed to counter different pieces of equipment like NARC or Artemis. But, these pieces of equipment were so negligible in usefulness, there wasn't really a reason to counter these.

Now that NARC is back into being something worth carrying and that missiles aren't as OP as they used to be, ECM doesn't need to be the king of "nope" and needs to be brought back to a reasonable level of countering NARC/BAP, etc. Oh, BAP, it needs to be reworked as well. I don't know how exactly, but PGI needs to rework this one so it makes sense canon-wise. Don't forget ECM is something that requires ZERO input, and as such shouldn't be as powerful as it is.

My vision of info warfare would require huge maps where you have several spots where you can "hide" with your passive sensors and get info on incoming mechs through BAP/NARC/TAG. Such info could be transferred to your team this way and you could coordinate attacks as such. C3 computers are another thing. I think this specific part could be a bit "annoying" to implement in MWO. Too early to tell about this.

Problem #6

Gauss rifle charge and how damage is dealt in MWO

Now, the gauss rifle is supposed to be the standoff long range ballistic gun. As such, it acts well as a sniping tool. But, it shouldn't be performing as well in brawls. But, how "bad" do we want it to perform? In other games, if someone flanks you when you're using a sniper rifle, you're usually caught pants down with a "no crosshair" rifle and you need to be either lucky and/or skillful to perform a perfect no crosshair shot. In MWO, you can't have this as your other weapons require the use of a crosshair. The other drawback of the using a sniper rifle is that you have HUGE reload times. Oh, I think we have something here.

Sniping shouldn't be completely frowned upon in MWO, but I can understand that the PPC/PPC/Gauss combo was too powerful and easy to use, especially when used with jetpacks. First, I think there needs to be a revisit of how damage is dealt. IMO, and I understand if people will disagree, Gauss rifles should be the only weapon that deals pinpoint damage. PPCs should, IMO, deal 5 pinpoint damage, 5 aoe damage. (2.5 to 2 adjacent parts, something like that) and ACs should be closer to burst cannons that shoot several slugs that deal fixed damage (AC/10 is 5x2, AC/20 10x2 or 5x4, AC/2 is 2x1, AC/5 is 5x1, numbers can change) so that you can mitigate the front loaded damage. Still, they need to fire very fast so they're very close to pinpoint damage.

As for the Gauss rifle, I could fix it using these 3 steps:

1) Remove Gauss charge
2) Add a fire delay (like the new sniper rifle for the NC in planetside 2, you click, there's a 0.5 second delay, then you shoot)
3) Increase cooldown so it really feels like a sniper rifle and doesn't become too good in brawls, but still very usable.


Notes about hardpoint sizes:

Fupdup has a pretty good idea how to implement hardpoint sizes... and he calls it hardpoint critslots. It's a more elegant idea and would fit MWO better IMO.

Notes about the heat rework:

My description of how heat should work is pretty much what we have, except PGI decreased weapon cooldowns by 2 or more, for the sake of keeping the combat exciting. If you permit your players to fire twice as fast in your game, then you should also cooldown twice as fast. In other words, I'd double the heat efficiency of heatsinks and remove the increasing of the heat threshold. This is further explained in the OP.

Edited by Sybreed, 22 April 2014 - 05:00 PM.

[FupDup]

Sybreed, on 22 April 2014 - 04:47 PM, said:

Notes about hardpoint sizes:

Fupdup has a pretty good idea how to implement hardpoint sizes... and he calls it hardpoint critslots. It's a more elegant idea and would fit MWO better IMO.

[Wildstreak]

#1 - Ghost Heat was created because there is no heat scale.

#3 - I believe they have stalled maps coming out, I recall shots of a Desert map 2-3 months ago but no word on it showing up. If it is not here next week, then we all know maps are delayed so attention is given to other things.

#4 - Problem with salvage, it does not come from nowhere.
Did you salvage a Griffin? It used to belong to the other player you killed, to give you salvage, he had to LOSE his. No way anyone will design a salvage system where the killer gets the salvage Mech but the person that owned it keeps it. Salvage was possible in other MWO games because it all came from the AI and the AI didn't care, it was remarkably wealthy.

[Craig Steele]

Merchant, on 22 April 2014 - 07:01 PM, said:

#1 - Ghost Heat was created because there is no heat scale.

#3 - I believe they have stalled maps coming out, I recall shots of a Desert map 2-3 months ago but no word on it showing up. If it is not here next week, then we all know maps are delayed so attention is given to other things.

#4 - Problem with salvage, it does not come from nowhere.
Did you salvage a Griffin? It used to belong to the other player you killed, to give you salvage, he had to LOSE his. No way anyone will design a salvage system where the killer gets the salvage Mech but the person that owned it keeps it. Salvage was possible in other MWO games because it all came from the AI and the AI didn't care, it was remarkably wealthy.

#3 didn't they say recently there is a jungle map all but done and just being finalised?

[Sybreed]

well, I'll bump this just once cause I updated it very late last night. If it drops again... bye bye thread