205 replies to this topic

[RG Notch]

The simplest reason that hardpoint sizing will never happen is the fact that many people bought and sold mechs based on the current set up. How do you think people will react when they suddenly can't use their builds on the mechs they own, or find out the mechs they sold are now the ones that can?

[Josef Nader]

Sybreed, on 24 April 2014 - 07:34 AM, said:

Got a question for you: Is a charger with PPCs instead of small lasers still a Charger?

My point is that customization is not only causing imbalances, but it's also killing mech identities. Of course the Charger is a bad mech and the mechlab would make it useful.... but it wouldn't be a charger anymore. It would be a Charger skin that would actually be closer to an Awesome of w/e. At this point, PGI should just release an empty mech template for each tonnage available with unlimited hardpoints and call it a day. Build your mech from the ground up since it's pretty much what we do.

Except that the first thing the great houses did was rip put the standard 400 and put real weapons in it. The 15A matches the Victor for speed while packing a small laser, a medium laser, a pair of SRM 6s and an AC20. The 19A has a small, four mediums, an LRM20 and Jump Jets.

tl;dr canon did exactly the same things players do.

Is the Awesome in MWO still an Awesome? Is it still a second line fire support mech focusing on missiles and energy weapons? Absoloutely. Is it forced to use 3 PPCs? Absolutely not.

Mechs in MWO have carved their own identities. These identities are influenced by their tabletop loadouts, but they have evolved into their own machines. Given the massive differences between a turn based wargame and an FPS, I'd say this is a good thing. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that giving every mech a unique flavor and identity is one of the strongest aspects of MWO.

Edited by Josef Nader, 24 April 2014 - 08:23 AM.

[DEN_Ninja]

Sized Hardpoints would only exacerbate a problem with people bringing the biggest, baddest, and largest kill machine they can.

More often than not Heavies and Assaults would have the higher quantity of larger sized hardpoints.

This pushes people to want to go mostly heavy and assault mechs because min maxing exists.

Even with the addition of 'Tonnage Limits' it would not fix the problem because a crap ton of people would stop around in their Victor/Highland/Cataphract/Atlas and thats it.

_________

I am aware that there are Mediums and Lights with loadouts that could carry large hard point weapons but the majority lies with the Heavies and Assaults.

For the most part people love to bring high damage, high alpha, or high dps builds. These builds LEAN HEAVILY toward the heavy/assault classes because that is basically their purpose.

Until we get more dynamic gamemodes and fixes to Role Warfare the sized hardpoints would kill variety in mechs and usher in the usage of of heavier mechs over the lighter ones.

[topgun505]

Because seeing THE EXACT SAME LOADOUT on 4-5 different chassis is oh so much better??

If it were me I'd make it a one to one translation (I.e. if you take off a weapon you are left with ONE hardpoint of that type) and the size would be the same number of slots of the original weapon. I'd love to see that happen for even just a short time just to see the resulting QQ on the forums.

OneEyed Jack, on 22 April 2014 - 02:33 PM, said:

Yes, what we really need is to contract the meta to a truly mind-numbingly limited number of chassis, because there would still be a "best" build, except only now one chassis would have the hardpoints to do it.

Shove this crap back in the archive.

[3rdworld]

topgun505, on 24 April 2014 - 08:28 AM, said:

Because seeing THE EXACT SAME LOADOUT on 4-5 different chassis is oh so much better??

If it were me I'd make it a one to one translation (I.e. if you take off a weapon you are left with ONE hardpoint of that type) and the size would be the same number of slots of the original weapon. I'd love to see that happen for even just a short time just to see the resulting QQ on the forums.

So instead of using the same loadout on 3-4 chassis, you want to restrict it to 2 ish.

Until the underlying weapon balance is corrected, changes to hardpoints to increase diversity will have the opposite effect, by only leaving very few viable options.

[Almond Brown]

cdlord, on 22 April 2014 - 03:04 PM, said:

Very good points Relic, thank you!

I know I don't have the end all be all answer but there's gotta be a different way than what we have now.

There is likely 1000's of different ways to do it, but ALL would add limitations that now do not exist, beyond Crits and weight? Once you introduce limitations, despite all the good intentions, the best will get used, the rest will be discarded.

It was asked before. No one ever complied (wonder why).

Provide a COMPLETE and comprehensive new system for ALL the Current and any Future Mechs and present it. Then the Community can chew on it and see what spits out.

It is unfair to say the current system is bad, make a half assed attempt to fix it, and then blame the Dev when they don't suddenly change the WHOLE system based on what? That half assed attempt of a fix?

Edited by Almond Brown, 24 April 2014 - 09:21 AM.

[Almond Brown]

moneyBURNER, on 22 April 2014 - 03:20 PM, said:

Implementing this system should actually save all kinds of work for PGI because it simplifies weapon balancing/boating issues, modeling issues, role warfare, etc.

The number of viable builds would only increase because chassis characteristics and variant quirks would be much more impactful in balancing particularly effective loadouts.

Through Rose colored Glasses it might seem that way. Reality, one that many here have seen before, begs to differ with that assessment. Sorry.

[Prezimonto]

cdlord, on 22 April 2014 - 01:49 PM, said:

I'm resurrecting my idea for sized hardpoints. I found my old post locked in the archives and I have refined it somewhat so that's why I'm making a new post.

Option A:
There should be two categories for hardpoints; Small and Large. Keep it simple and base it off the stock loadout of the variant/chassis.

Small Hardpoints: TAG, SL, ML, MG, AC2, AC5, NARC, SRM2, SRM4, LRM5, LRM10.
Large Hardpoints: LL, PPC, AC10, AC20, Gauss, SRM6, LRM15, LRM20

Large hardpoints can equip small weapons, but small hardpoints cannot equip large weapons.
The listed weapons include variant weapons (pulse, er, uac, lb, streak, etc).

This would allow for light and medium mechs that carry large weapons to be unique.

Option B:
Builds off option A somewhat. Use the weapon categories of small and large, but make that into a hardpoint cost instead. For instance, small weapons only need one hardpoint to be equipped but large weapons require two hardpoints. This hardpoint requirement would be in addition to crit slots and tonnage.

I still think a really good compromise would be to give every weapon a critical slot AND hardpoint requirement.

AC20's need 3 ballisitic hardpoints in the location as well as the 10 slots.

PPC's need 3 energy hardpoints in the location as well as 3 slots.

If you have mech's that don't conform to hardpoint requirements but SHOULD carry a huge weapon give them a quirk that allows those specific hard points to tote the huge weapon anyway. This way the modeling department doesn't have to go back and edit a large number of mechs.

It will also make the modeling deparments job EASIER over time as they don't have to model EVERY possible combination of weapons for every hardpoint.

It will also make mechs hard point layout a lot more distinct giving a purpose to a large number of mechs again.

[Almond Brown]

GreyGriffin, on 22 April 2014 - 04:01 PM, said:

I have actually been churning this over a bit lately, and have come to the conclusion that a combination of hardpoints and limited crit slots for those hardpoints is the best solution. It would allow hardpoint counts to be more generous and flexible without worrying about massive PPC/AC 20 boating.

Massive may be a bit overstated don't you think. 2 PPC's and 3 AC5 is the beef of the Meta currently. Fortunately only very few Mechs, and in very few weight classes can even muster that loadout.

If 2 of a kind is considered massive Boating, then Boating will never be stopped.

Hellcat420, on 22 April 2014 - 04:09 PM, said:

innersphere mechs could not always customize their weapons in the ip, and clan wolf did not give the innersphere the idea for refit kits until 3051-3052. the mechwarrior games are a bad example to try to reference when it comes to the ip since they were all pretty crappy representations of how battlemechs worked.

Question? Does a BattleMech's Record sheet have sized Hard points on it or just Crits and weight limits?

Edited by Almond Brown, 24 April 2014 - 09:47 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Mcgral18, on 22 April 2014 - 05:54 PM, said:

And this is worse than every mech being the same? With varients ignored because they don't have enough hardpoints.

Some mechs come with larger weapons mounted on them. They pay for it with engine or armor. MWO's system ignores all of that, and all mechs of the same category has the exact same max armor.

Making some sort of difference instead of just # of hardpoints across mechs would go a long way to make them unique.

Unique and gathering dust in a MechBay somewhere don't actually mix very well.

[Almond Brown]

Prezimonto, on 24 April 2014 - 09:30 AM, said:

I still think a really good compromise would be to give every weapon a critical slot AND hardpoint requirement.

AC20's need 3 ballisitic hardpoints in the location as well as the 10 slots.

PPC's need 3 energy hardpoints in the location as well as 3 slots.

If you have mech's that don't conform to hardpoint requirements but SHOULD carry a huge weapon give them a quirk that allows those specific hard points to tote the huge weapon anyway. This way the modeling department doesn't have to go back and edit a large number of mechs.

It will also make the modeling deparments job EASIER over time as they don't have to model EVERY possible combination of weapons for every hardpoint.

It will also make mechs hard point layout a lot more distinct giving a purpose to a large number of mechs again.

If I read that correctly, you want to modify the current system but do so with another system that is also modifiable to assure you get what you want out of the new system...? Is that about right?

[CDLord HHGD]

Tichorius Davion, on 24 April 2014 - 08:28 AM, said:

Sized Hardpoints would only exacerbate a problem with people bringing the biggest, baddest, and largest kill machine they can.

More often than not Heavies and Assaults would have the higher quantity of larger sized hardpoints.

This pushes people to want to go mostly heavy and assault mechs because min maxing exists.

Even with the addition of 'Tonnage Limits' it would not fix the problem because a crap ton of people would stop around in their Victor/Highland/Cataphract/Atlas and thats it.

_________

I am aware that there are Mediums and Lights with loadouts that could carry large hard point weapons but the majority lies with the Heavies and Assaults.

For the most part people love to bring high damage, high alpha, or high dps builds. These builds LEAN HEAVILY toward the heavy/assault classes because that is basically their purpose.

Until we get more dynamic gamemodes and fixes to Role Warfare the sized hardpoints would kill variety in mechs and usher in the usage of of heavier mechs over the lighter ones.

You're forgetting about 3/3/3/3.....

[OneEyed Jack]

cdlord, on 24 April 2014 - 12:00 PM, said:

You're forgetting about 3/3/3/3.....

You're forgetting that whatever bad mechs you think will suddenly get played would still be worse than the good mechs that people will keep playing, whatever the weight class.

[Relic1701]

Does anyone else get the impression that Jack doesn't like this idea????

Most of us are having a discussion, but he seems a bit...how shall I put it... 'shouty'

Oooh...is he the vocal minority I keep hearing about?

Edited by Relic1701, 24 April 2014 - 02:35 PM.

[Josef Nader]

Gotta love a good ad hom attack when you know your side doesn't have a leg to stand on.

[Sybreed]

Josef Nader, on 24 April 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Gotta love a good ad hom attack when you know your side doesn't have a leg to stand on.

well know we've given plenty of good arguments as to why critslots would improve the game. Hell, even Star Citizen will have sized hardpoints.

[Funky Bacon]

Lets bring these oldies about crit slots back. cause images say more than words, right?





Limiting, but still allows customization.

[Relic1701]

Funky Bacon, on 24 April 2014 - 02:59 PM, said:

Lets bring these oldies about crit slots back. cause images say more than words, right?





Limiting, but still allows customization.

This is exactly the kind of thing this whole thread has been about, yes, it is limiting, yes it allows customisation, and PGI wouldn't currently be looking for ways to nerf Clan mechs...the true OMNI-Mechs.

[Josef Nader]

And nobody's addressed the counterpoints people keep bringing up, namely:

1) Further restricting mech customization strangles out chassis and variants that are already struggling.

2) You won't have any effect on the meta, you'll simply limit the number of mechs on the girls even further. People aren't about to start playing non-meta mechs just because you changed which mechs they have decent hitboxes and can run the loadouts they like.

3) I've yet to see any real argument as for why this system needs to be in place beyond "waah! Mechs aren't using their stock (or close to stock) loadouts!" and "lol it will help weapon balance," which it won't, because as I mentioned above, players aren't going to change which loadouts they're going to be running, just the chassis.

[AC]

cdlord, on 22 April 2014 - 01:49 PM, said:

I'm resurrecting my idea for sized hardpoints. I found my old post locked in the archives and I have refined it somewhat so that's why I'm making a new post.

Option A:
There should be two categories for hardpoints; Small and Large. Keep it simple and base it off the stock loadout of the variant/chassis.

Small Hardpoints: TAG, SL, ML, MG, AC2, AC5, NARC, SRM2, SRM4, LRM5, LRM10.
Large Hardpoints: LL, PPC, AC10, AC20, Gauss, SRM6, LRM15, LRM20

Large hardpoints can equip small weapons, but small hardpoints cannot equip large weapons.
The listed weapons include variant weapons (pulse, er, uac, lb, streak, etc).

This would allow for light and medium mechs that carry large weapons to be unique.

Option B:
Builds off option A somewhat. Use the weapon categories of small and large, but make that into a hardpoint cost instead. For instance, small weapons only need one hardpoint to be equipped but large weapons require two hardpoints. This hardpoint requirement would be in addition to crit slots and tonnage.

Do you know what is even simpler? Use a mechanic that already exists in the game. LIKE CRITICAL SPACE. There is no need to make up new mechanics to complicate the game....PGI does this enough on their own.

Just have a critical space indicator next to each hardpoint that lets you know the max critical space size of the weapon you can put there.