205 replies to this topic

[Livewyr]

Idea for hardpoint size restrictions:

Make the endo/ferro critslots *not* dynamic.

Mixes with lore, would create some actual consideration for the Endo-steel (which I think, on every one of my mechs is standard) and would limit the larger ballistics to some degree. Atlas with Endo might have to reconsider that AC20..or the three LRM15s..)

[1453 R]

cdlord, on 24 April 2014 - 04:59 AM, said:

What this limits is meta-player's ability to make those 2xPPC+AC20, 2xAC5, etc. builds. It doesn't eliminate them from the game but it narrows the options in chassis/variants that can do it.

YES. EXACTLY. IT LIMITS THE OPTIONS IN CHASSIS THAT ARE GOOD, FORCING PLAYERS INTO A MUCH NARROWER RANGE OF CHASSIS CAPABLE OF STILL DOING THAT THING THAT WINS GAMES.

Do I need to type it in larger text? Perhaps color it bright red? What do I need to do to get the point across that no matter what you restrict 'Good' to, 'Good' will always be better than 'Bad' and players who like winning will use 'Good' instead of 'Bad'?!

OneEyed Jack, on 24 April 2014 - 04:19 AM, said:

If the Awesome was the only mech that could boat PPCs... PPCs just wouldn't get boated.

I think that's sort of the point. Folks* want to be able to walk into a match with an AC/10, an SRM-4, an LRM-5, three medium lasers and a flamer (on an Atlas!), and they want that to be The Best Way To Play The Game.

A focused armament designed to do its job and do it well will always be superior to Gun Potpourri in MWO. Unfortunately, stock designs usually have a horrific case of Gun Potpourri because stock designs are subject to rules and conditions we'll never see in MWO. They had to be mass-produceable by governments with sharply limited budgets, they had to hold up under months or years-long campaigns in which their arsenal of crappy holdout subweapons might be all they had available for a time...but they also had combined-arms support and were, generally, able to retreat to a supply chain to restock their consumables. And you know what? Even with those conditions in place, a focused armament designed to do its job and do it well is superior to Gun Potpourri!

The sad but simple truth is that stock designs generally make no frogging sense. Forcing us to play stock-plus-DHS designs does nothing to change the fact that most stock designs DO NOT MAKE SENSE. All it does is force players who want their 'Mechs to make sense to move into the handful of stock-plus-DHS chassis that do make sense, eliminating from general play any 'Mech which might otherwise be good/useful, but whose stock configuration makes no sense (Read: BJ-1 and others like it). People who don't give a lick about combat effectiveness and just want to run what they want to run are already doing that.

The Awesome is bad for reasons beyond the ability of a Stalker to carry its armament. Making it the only 'Mech in the game that can even look slantways at PPCs won't stop it from being bad. You could make the Awesome the only 'Mech in the game able to equip PPCs and it would still be a novelty rather than a serious force on the field. That's just what happens when you're one of the easiest targets in the entire game.

EDIT:: Ye know what? I'ma address this, too.

cdlord, on 24 April 2014 - 04:59 AM, said:

This is lore. Nowhere can you read about pilots alpha striking everything they come across. What you do read about is mixed loadouts able to send damage at any range and pilots managing their heat.

As much as I loved the BattleTech novels and lore, they're stories. Designed to be dramatic and entertaining and get your blood going. If, however, you look at actual combat vehicles, they generally center around a single weapon which does the job the vehicle is purposed to do, with maybe one or two sub-weapons to patch up a weakness in the primary weapon. This is what makes sense. This is what wins fights, in reality and in the game sphere. Any system I equip to my 'Mechs needs to have a specific job to do; I don't throw things on there because I think it'll look just fabulous next to my autocannon ammo, dahling!

And no amount of "You can't put anything bigger than a medium laser on anything smaller than a Banshee" will make me put together or pilot 'mechs that make no blasted sense!

Edited by 1453 R, 24 April 2014 - 05:11 AM.

[OneEyed Jack]

cdlord, on 24 April 2014 - 04:59 AM, said:

And here I have to disagree with you 100%. While it doesn't stop it cold, it would mitigate/limit it.

No. You are wrong on every level.

You wouldn't mitigate or limit it. You might shift the meta, but it would still be there. Shifting the meta does not create diversity. It just doesn't, no matter how much you wish it would. It's a naive fantasy.

Quote

What this limits is meta-player's ability to make those 2xPPC+AC20, 2xAC5, etc. builds. It doesn't eliminate them from the game but it narrows the options in chassis/variants that can do it.

So having all the meta-humpers driving the same chassis and variant somehow improves something? You are a very confused person.

[moneyBURNER]

OneEyed Jack, on 24 April 2014 - 04:19 AM, said:

OK, but that would require large energy to be more boat-able. Even of they dropped GH (lol, yeah right!), more than 2 PPCs just isn't that good. ERPPC are too hot, and normal PPCs have serious limits. Sure, some people still do it on Stalkers, but they can go "hull-down" behind a ridge and are tough as nails. If the Awesome was the only mech that could boat PPCs... PPCs just wouldn't get boated.

What it comes down to is this. You could lay out any system of limits. Literally any system. You could go through every chassis and variant assigning limits, quirks, new rules, anything. Within a day, any decent power-gamer would break your system and figure out what was best. Within a week it would be common knowledge. Within the month, a new meta would be firmly entrenched, with very few builds being played at competitive levels and all the wannabes at lower levels copying them, just like now. Now, those builds might be nerfed compared to what's being played currently, but they'd still be the top builds, and the whining would continue. The only thing you would have accomplished is that those builds would all be on a smaller variety of chassis/variants than they are now.

[Edited to add]
This is why I keep arguing the point. It's not because I'm a meta-loving power-gamer. I can power-game with the best of them, but generally choose not to. Contrary to what most probably think, I'm not trying to protect my precious OP meta builds. I generally play a variety of builds designed to be fun while still being fairly good. These proposals to enforce additional limits on mech-building take away from my (and others') ability to experiment and have fun with builds, while never even remotely accomplishing the stated objective of eliminating or diversifying the meta.

One of the main points of this whole discussion is to get rid of ghost heat by controlling excessive boating of large weapons! But sized hardpoints is only one part of the total solution to achieve a more realistic and diverse mech sim.

If all that sized hardpoints did was to keep the same meta but without ghost heat, that would be enough!

The thing is, when all these proposed systems are in place, then it's much easier to do focused tuning to particularly effective variants to bring them closer to others, with less of a chance for unintended consequences.

With a mech like the Awesome, the goal should be to justify its existence by offering something it can excel at, like being a 5+LL energy boat (with better weapon balance achieved through testing, and sensible quirk advantages). The stalker would not be able to boat as many LLs or PPCs with sized hardpoints that acknowledge physical space limitations, and chassis specifications the player is not aware of.

Edited by moneyBURNER, 24 April 2014 - 05:25 AM.

[Magna Canus]

OneEyed Jack, on 24 April 2014 - 03:47 AM, said:

BZZZZZZzzzzzt! Wrong answer! But we have some wonderful door prizes for you! Tell him what he's won, Bob! Highlanders are not, by any stretch of the imagination an under-played chassis. Some variants are more popular than others, especially at competitive levels, but that's a weapon balance issue. And they all see play. The point here is that people keep harping on this fantasy idea that unused/underused chassis suddenly become useful. As in, there's a reason to take them over and above other chassis because the effect they bring to the table is worth bringing. Balancing out already popular chassis/variants to shift the title of Most Popular to one of the others, doesn't accomplish this.

Hey Jack,
I want to ask if I have your chain of logic correct so help me out here a bit;
1) Due to current weapon balance we have a "most popular/most optimal" set of weapons (i.g. PPC/AC combo)
2) Due to the above we have a "most popular/most optimal" chassis/set of chassis that can mount the above
3) Everyone wants to play the "most popular/most optimal" set of weapons and chassis
4) This means that some variants are played and some are "extinct"
5) Sized weapons slots will not alter this at all because their "stock config" would allow it anyways

Did I get that right?

The other side is arguing for;
1) More realism in the weapons config (i.e. oversized weapons on undersized chassis)
2) Limitation of "boating" in some way
3) Chassis specific quirks to encourage their "popularity/usefulness"
4) (Indirect) elimination of the current "meta"

I think I covered all points there.

Now to my 2CB; Ported 1 to 1 the sized hard point system will not eliminate "the meta", but rather shift it as you mentioned. Currently those who use the meta are not interested in "inferior/broken" chassis/weapons and will eventually find/create a new meta after any change. In this we agree.

For the rest of the population that are not focused exclusively on the meta there are other considerations to be made such as chassis specific quirks that make them excel with a certain "non-meta" weapon config and thereby become somewhat more competitive. I am all for this as it MAY encourage more diversity on the field, which is better than not trying at all.

I am also for "realistic" weapon hard point limits like restricting certain weapons on certain chassis that by virtue of weight/power consumption/recoil/etc. should not be "realistically" possible. Here I am talking about the ERPPC Spider, the AC20 Raven and other "joke builds" (yes I understand that they are fatally flawed and seldom used) as well as "obscene min/max" builds such as the 3xGaus Iya and the Boom Jager/Cat (also understand that they have "limitations"). Things like the power consumption of charging the Gaus coils has yet to be addressed for example. The same as the estimated recoil of an alpha from a Boom Jager/Cat. Realistically a hard point needs to be specifically designed for a weapon of a specific size or type of weapon (i.e. Hunch of the Hunchback) which would allow specific chassis to have a specific use based on that conscious design element. That is where limiting the slots of a specific hard point come in. As mentioned in a previous post it is not realistic that a Jenner and an Atlas have the same number of slots in the arms for example.

Currently the generic weapon slot system does not fully take such design elements into consideration making many new mechs DOA, e.g. people compare them to existing mechs and declare them useful/useless or "no different than chassis x". The reason why we have so little diversity on the filed compared to chassis available is the fact that the current hard point system does not offer enough diversity by itself, thus one energy/ballistic/missile hard point is the same as the other.

using a specific weapons combo or chassis or play style is a choice each person makes based on personal preference as well as personal skill. Some people do well with LRMs, others don't, others rail against them. Some people excel with PPC/AC, others don't, others rail against them. Same with ECM, or weight class, etc.

With all these choices, were your logic absolute and a majority rule, we would only see PPC/AC pop-tarts, or only LRM spammers, or only ECM lights, etc. on the field. But we don't, there is still diversity out there despite the meta and any step taken to try to expand the level of diversity is a good thing.

I am not a bad player, I do well on the field, despite the fact that I choose not to use "the meta". Am I an exception? No, not really. Would slotted weapon hard points change that fact? No, not really. Will meta players continue to play their meta despite whatever system is in place? Yes. So why resist the winds of change?

[Ultimax]

GroovYChickeN, on 23 April 2014 - 10:02 AM, said:

You argument assumes that all mechs are created equal. They are not. There are inherent drawback to some mech's over other's. Want your mighty peepeecee boat? You rock an Awesome. Enjoy! Oh and by the way you are a giant barn door. Better use cover to you're advantage. Otherwise you may be able to get one or two in a mech but not 3 or 4 without running an Awesome (or some other mech's that are not in the game yet).

This version of the game sounds overly restrictive, unfun, and would probably have more balance issues across mechs than what we currently have.

[Josef Nader]

There's another side of 1453 R and OneEyedJack's argument.

I freaking love taking a bad mech and making it work. It's my hobby. I love taking mechs that the bulk of the playerbase write off as useless and breaking 2.0 KDRs with them. It's a hobby of mine. A big part of this is the level of customizability of the mechs. One of my latest projects is a slow Raven 4X with an XL210, ERLL, AC/5, and a Medium Laser, with the operative idea being practicing for clan lights. I love the loadout and I don't think there's a player on the forums that would accuse that build of being anywhere near meta, but I'm having a blast with it and putting out surprisingly solid numbers.

Constrained to the hardpoint size limitiations? It could never exist. The Raven 4X would just be bad. Small engine, small weapons, bad hitboxes bad. Unusuable, unplayable, unenjoyable.

Right now, you can put good weapons on bad mechs and, with a little practice, hold your own. Remove my ability to put good weapons onto bad mechs? They're screwed. You'd never see them, save for the extremely painful 20 games required to basic them for the "good" variant.

Limiting customizability is bad, as while customizability allows the meta builds to exist, it also allows the non-meta mechs to perform well above their stock loadouts.

Look at the Shadow Hawk. If you constrained that mech to it's stock loadout, or close to it's stock loadout, you've wiped it out of the meta.

[moneyBURNER]

This thread is a bit of a mess because there are different systems being discussed.

A "Raven 4X with an XL210, ERLL, AC/5, and a Medium Laser" would not be affected at all by the concept I'm arguing for.

[Josef Nader]

moneyBURNER, on 24 April 2014 - 05:47 AM, said:

This thread is a bit of a mess because there are different systems being discussed.

A "Raven 4X with an XL210, ERLL, AC/5, and a Medium Laser" would not be affected at all by the concept I'm arguing for.

The Raven 4X is nothing but "Small" hardpoints, and the only weapon on it above a single crit slot is an SRM6. I'm not quite sure how that wouldn't affect that loadout.

As far as "oversized weapons on undersized chassis," welcome to Battletech? The Commando, Urbanmech, Panther, Hollander, Wolfhound, and Raven say hello. All of these mechs mount at least one large, heavy weapon that apparently should tip the mech over (the Urbanmech R60L comes to mind).

Protip, giant stompy robots aren't realistic, and viewing them through a lens of realism is useless.

Edited by Josef Nader, 24 April 2014 - 05:59 AM.

[Magna Canus]

1453 R, on 24 April 2014 - 05:05 AM, said:

And you know what? Even with those conditions in place, a focused armament designed to do its job and do it well is superior to Gun Potpourri! The sad but simple truth is that stock designs generally make no frogging sense. Forcing us to play stock-plus-DHS designs does nothing to change the fact that most stock designs DO NOT MAKE SENSE. All it does is force players who want their 'Mechs to make sense to move into the handful of stock-plus-DHS chassis that do make sense, eliminating from general play any 'Mech which might otherwise be good/useful, but whose stock configuration makes no sense (Read: BJ-1 and others like it).
...
As much as I loved the BattleTech novels and lore, they're stories. Designed to be dramatic and entertaining and get your blood going. If, however, you look at actual combat vehicles, they generally center around a single weapon which does the job the vehicle is purposed to do, with maybe one or two sub-weapons to patch up a weakness in the primary weapon. This is what makes sense. This is what wins fights, in reality and in the game sphere. Any system I equip to my 'Mechs needs to have a specific job to do; I don't throw things on there because I think it'll look just fabulous next to my autocannon ammo, dahling! And no amount of "You can't put anything bigger than a medium laser on anything smaller than a Banshee" will make me put together or pilot 'mechs that make no blasted sense!

I agree with you here that a specific mech should have a specific purpose and thereby a specific weapons arrangement.
I also agree that most stock load-outs do not make much sense or are very effective in MWO today.

If we can step back from the "stock + DHS" for a second and consider the hard point limitation + quirks as an attempt to realize just what you are saying, e.g. a way to make each chassis "make sense" by making it good with a "preferred weapon system" on a more or less even scale with other mechs (balance will never be absolute, I have no illusions) we move a step further away from a mono-chassis culture, not closer.

Those who are of the meta mindset may move to an even smaller subset of chassis which is fine in my eyes. It makes them easier to identify and deal with. Instead of having to remember the 6 meta chassis I only have to take note of 2, I can identify the threat and play style easier and counter earlier/faster. It would be a lot better if there was just 1 meta-chassis so that everyone knows that when you see one you have to swarm and kill it immediately. how many "meta humpers" want to expose themselves to that risk for long?

[1453 R]

Magnakanus, on 24 April 2014 - 05:26 AM, said:

I am not a bad player, I do well on the field, despite the fact that I choose not to use "the meta". Am I an exception? No, not really. Would slotted weapon hard points change that fact? No, not really. Will meta players continue to play their meta despite whatever system is in place? Yes. So why resist the winds of change?

Because I really enjoy playing my Boomjack, I still play my Gauss Flame sometimes, I like having medium lasers instead of flamers on my Firestarters, and I still own a Quickdraw.

According to The Sized Hardpoints Proposal, my BJ-1 gets an AC/2 in each arm, or maybe an AC/5 in each arm if the devs are feeling generous. ...welp! Time to never play that 'Mech again! So much for my agile, interesting-to-play strike-from-ambush tank destroyer - apparently if I want an AC/20 on ANYTHING, I need to either deal with the Hunchback (which, much like the Awesome, sucks for reasons far and away beyond the ability of other 'Mechs to carry its signature weapon), or I rocket right on up to assault 'Mechs since we're not allowing anything smaller than a Banshee to carry anything bigger than a medium laser. My Firestarters are limited to a suit of 'anti-personnel' hardpoints because Firestarters are supposed to start fires, not boat energy weapons! Never mind that FIRES ARE UNSTARTABLE in this game, I need to be starting fires! And I believe I've already covered the swift and ignoble death of the Quickdraw and any 'Mech like it in a previous post.

Like Josef says, right now you can take a bad 'Mech and make it good(ish) by giving it an unconventional armament and playing it in ways other folks don't expect. I've got an RVN-2X guide up in Light 'Mechs somewhere that still gets me the occasional like, simply because I could use the customization system we currently have to turn it into a more-effective-than-you-thought escort 'Mech. Do I pay in blood for packing two large lasers, two medium lasers, and an SRM launcher into a light 'Mech? You better believe I do - but it's still a thing I can do! It's a thing that makes that otherwise-terrible 'Mech fun to play and gives it a purpose in life! Constrict off Ravens to their stock armaments - or Blackjacks, or Quickdraws, or Dragons, or Shadow Hawks, or Cicadas, or JagerMechs, or Stalkers, or Banshees, or HALF THE BLASTED 'MECHS IN THE GAME...and you just won't see them anymore. People won't be able to correct their flaws and turn them into something worth playing, and so they just won't play them.

I want to play more than just my blasted Victors. I want to keep playing three-quarters of the junky non-meta scrub 'mechs in my hangar who would die fiery deaths if they were choked down to stock-plus-DHS even though they're not problematic in any real way. I hate the stock configurations on most of the 'Mechs I own - why should I be forced to give up three quarters of my stable so that you can impose your own preferences on me? if you don't like overgunning smaller 'mechs and want to play a more sim-feeling game, then don't put PPCs on Spiders. And also go look up the Pack Hunter if you think a fast, jumping light 'Mech with a PPC is an insult to the BattleTech canon.

moneyBURNER, on 24 April 2014 - 05:47 AM, said:

This thread is a bit of a mess because there are different systems being discussed.

A "Raven 4X with an XL210, ERLL, AC/5, and a Medium Laser" would not be affected at all by the concept I'm arguing for.

The issue is that the original post, and the original poster, are still calling for a large/small hardpoint system which would effectively remove customization from MWO altogether, and a few of us are trying to get those folks to see reasona nd understand that such a system solves nothing whilst completely crippling one of the coremost aspects of the game. I've already mentioned that I have no real issue with MW4's customization system; I liked it back then, I could certainly work with it now.

[moneyBURNER]

Josef Nader, on 24 April 2014 - 05:50 AM, said:

The Raven 4X is nothing but "Small" hardpoints, and the only weapon on it above a single crit slot is an SRM6. I'm not quite sure how that wouldn't affect that loadout.

All my posts involve a different system that is essentially what FupDup outlined on the first page, where hardpoints in each location are combined into a maximum number of slots determined not by the stock weapons, but by what makes realistic sense and serves balancing purposes.

For example, the Raven 4X would be given a 2-weapon, 6 slot hardpoint in the arm so it could fit various combinations of ballistics, but not a gauss rifle or an AC20 that would realistically be too large and heavy.

Edited by moneyBURNER, 24 April 2014 - 06:04 AM.

[3rdworld]

moneyBURNER, on 24 April 2014 - 06:03 AM, said:

All my posts involve a different system that is essentially what FupDup outlined on the first page, where hardpoints in each location are combined into a maximum number of slots determined not by the stock weapons, but by what makes realistic sense and serves balancing purposes.

For example, the Raven 4X would be given a 2-weapon, 6 slot hardpoint in the arm so it could fit various combinations of ballistics, but not a gauss rifle or an AC20 that would realistically be too large and heavy.

So a system which needs PGI to go back and rebalance everything.

Does anyone see the problem with this or is it just me?

[Josef Nader]

moneyBURNER, on 24 April 2014 - 06:03 AM, said:

All my posts involve a different system that is essentially what FupDup outlined on the first page, where hardpoints in each location are combined into a maximum number of slots determined not by the stock weapons, but by what makes realistic sense and serves balancing purposes.

For example, the Raven 4X would be given a 2-weapon, 6 slot hardpoint in the arm so it could fit various combinations of ballistics, but not a gauss rifle or an AC20 that would realistically be too large and heavy.

Again, what do you mean "realistic"? The Urbanmech is a 30 ton light mech with an AC20 in one arm. The Hollander is a 35 ton light with a gauss rifle. Giant stompy robots are inherently powered by rule of cool and have no place on a realistic battlefield.

Why -shouldn't- the AC20 Raven exist?

Edited by Josef Nader, 24 April 2014 - 06:09 AM.

[moneyBURNER]

3rdworld, on 24 April 2014 - 06:05 AM, said:

So a system which needs PGI to go back and rebalance everything.

Does anyone see the problem with this or is it just me?

It should be trivial. All the hardpoints remain the same, with just an extra limitation on the total number of large weapons per variant, that respects various factors I mentioned many times. The customizability of many variants wouldn't necessarily change at all.

Josef Nader, on 24 April 2014 - 06:08 AM, said:

Again, what do you mean "realistic"? The Urbanmech is a 30 ton light mech with an AC20 in one arm. The Hollander is a 35 ton light with a gauss rifle. Giant stompy robots are inherently powered by rule of cool and have no place on a realistic battlefield.

Why -shouldn't- the AC20 Raven exist?

It's just my opinion that a more realistic mech sim that respects logical consistency and plausibility is cooler. There's no reason for an AC20 Raven not to exist with sized hardpoints, but I would hope the ingame model would convey the size and awkwardness of carrying such a large and powerful weapon on such a light mech.

[DEN_Ninja]

1453 R, on 23 April 2014 - 06:01 AM, said:

All right.

You know what would bring certain 'Mechs back into the fold, or at least pull them in from out of the acid rain? Here's a hint: it's not eliminating 'Mech customization as a thing outside of the inevitable DHS tax on anything that doesn't come without stock DHS.

What it is, is an aggressive rework of the quirks system such that each 'Mech can retain its individual flavor without telling players "NO, THE ONLY THING YOU CAN CUSTOMIZE ON YOUR 'MECH IS WHETHER YOU USE MEDIUM LASERS OR MEDIUM PULSE LASERS IN THAT HARDPOINT YOU'RE EYEING RIGHT THERE."

Playing a Centurion? Incoming fire to the left arm is reduced by 33%, since you've got a big stonkin' shield bolted to it.

In a Catapult? Decreased heat and increased cycle time for launchers as proposed, since those massive missile-boxes had best be designed to put missiles downrange as effectively as possible.

In a Raven-3L? Increase effective area of the electronics package the 'Mech was built to carry, as well as increasing the component health of the devices themselves so that they're harder to shoot out of the 'Mech.

In a Quickdraw? Enjoy PGI fixing their mistake and giving you the Medium hill-climbing profile as well as enhancements to your mobility to account for the fact that you're a gunslingery guerrilla 'Mech with happy feet. Given that apparently making it smaller than an Atlas is a no-go.

Furthermore and such! Seriously - sized hardpoints does screw-all to fix the game or Bring Back Bad 'Mechs. Bad 'Mechs will still be bad 'Mechs, they'll just be bad 'Mechs that are now magically unable to equip anything but bad guns. Even with aggressively rebalanced quirks, bad 'Mechs will still be bad 'Mechs, but you know what? They may wind up being bad 'Mechs with good guns and interesting tricks, which is a whole lot better than being bad 'Mechs forced to used bad guns and without a single trick to their name.

This sooo much.

[Magna Canus]

1453 R, on 24 April 2014 - 05:52 AM, said:

Because I really enjoy playing my Boomjack, I still play my Gauss Flame sometimes, I like having medium lasers instead of flamers on my Firestarters, and I still own a Quickdraw. According to The Sized Hardpoints Proposal, my BJ-1 gets an AC/2 in each arm, or maybe an AC/5 in each arm if the devs are feeling generous. ...welp! Time to never play that 'Mech again! So much for my agile, interesting-to-play strike-from-ambush tank destroyer - apparently if I want an AC/20 on ANYTHING, I need to either deal with the Hunchback (which, much like the Awesome, sucks for reasons far and away beyond the ability of other 'Mechs to carry its signature weapon), or I rocket right on up to assault 'Mechs since we're not allowing anything smaller than a Banshee to carry anything bigger than a medium laser. My Firestarters are limited to a suit of 'anti-personnel' hardpoints because Firestarters are supposed to start fires, not boat energy weapons! Never mind that FIRES ARE UNSTARTABLE in this game, I need to be starting fires! And I believe I've already covered the swift and ignoble death of the Quickdraw and any 'Mech like it in a previous post. Like Josef says, right now you can take a bad 'Mech and make it good(ish) by giving it an unconventional armament and playing it in ways other folks don't expect. I've got an RVN-2X guide up in Light 'Mechs somewhere that still gets me the occasional like, simply because I could use the customization system we currently have to turn it into a more-effective-than-you-thought escort 'Mech. Do I pay in blood for packing two large lasers, two medium lasers, and an SRM launcher into a light 'Mech? You better believe I do - but it's still a thing I can do! It's a thing that makes that otherwise-terrible 'Mech fun to play and gives it a purpose in life! Constrict off Ravens to their stock armaments - or Blackjacks, or Quickdraws, or Dragons, or Shadow Hawks, or Cicadas, or JagerMechs, or Stalkers, or Banshees, or HALF THE BLASTED 'MECHS IN THE GAME...and you just won't see them anymore. People won't be able to correct their flaws and turn them into something worth playing, and so they just won't play them. I want to play more than just my blasted Victors. I want to keep playing three-quarters of the junky non-meta scrub 'mechs in my hangar who would die fiery deaths if they were choked down to stock-plus-DHS even though they're not problematic in any real way. I hate the stock configurations on most of the 'Mechs I own - why should I be forced to give up three quarters of my stable so that you can impose your own preferences on me? if you don't like overgunning smaller 'mechs and want to play a more sim-feeling game, then don't put PPCs on Spiders. And also go look up the Pack Hunter if you think a fast, jumping light 'Mech with a PPC is an insult to the BattleTech canon. The issue is that the original post, and the original poster, are still calling for a large/small hardpoint system which would effectively remove customization from MWO altogether, and a few of us are trying to get those folks to see reasona nd understand that such a system solves nothing whilst completely crippling one of the coremost aspects of the game. I've already mentioned that I have no real issue with MW4's customization system; I liked it back then, I could certainly work with it now.

Some more variation than just small/large is needed, yes. Small/large is a bit over-simplified.

But the OP suggestion would not limit you from using ML's on the Firebrand at all. With a better quirk system the FS9 might have some advantages with the Flamer, but limiting the FS9 to Flamers would be counterproductive, we agree on that. I agreed in another post that stock variants don't make sense in MWO for the most part and also that a mech variant should excel with a primary weapons system in mind, but not limited to just that. So we are in the same boat on that part.

I don't think the generalized statement of "limiting anything smaller than a banshee anything larger than an ML" is really quite accurate here and a bit of an exaggeration. At least in my understanding of the material.

Using quirks COULD make the Hunchback/Awesome at using their signature weapons and should IMHO. This comes back to the point where a particular chassis design should excel at a particular weapons system, but which should not limit you WITHIN REASONABLE BOUNDS to just that system.

I can understand that you like your Boomjack and would say "have at it" if there was a specific variant out there that was realistically designed for it (BJ-BOOM). I mean, for a 45 ton mech toting around a weapon that weighs 1/3 of the entire mech itself should have some serious design elements to compensate. On another note, the Pack Hunter and the Panther were specifically designed with the PPC in mind.

In a later post I noted that under the current system there are several mechs that are "DOA" because of the existing system. You look at the hard-points and say to yourself "my xy can already do that or better, meh, don't need this new mech". The reason why a lot of chassis variants are "useless" is because there are others that can do the exact same thing or better. So why do they exist, what is the point? Just because you need to elite out 2 other variants so you can master your favorite should not be the only reason for their existance. Spiffing up my "bad mechs" should not really be an issue.

[XtremWarrior]

1453 R, on 24 April 2014 - 05:52 AM, said:

smart things

You know you're fighting the wind, right?
Because there is no freaking way that the guys who still re-open such dead threads like that will listen to logic. Or good arguments. Or anything...
It has already been discussed, with the same points on each side and it was so representative of our playerbase that the thread died. And here we go again. Just let it go, man, you can't argue with people who just want to make their crazy dreams come true.

[Sybreed]

Josef Nader, on 24 April 2014 - 05:36 AM, said:

There's another side of 1453 R and OneEyedJack's argument.

I freaking love taking a bad mech and making it work. It's my hobby. I love taking mechs that the bulk of the playerbase write off as useless and breaking 2.0 KDRs with them. It's a hobby of mine. A big part of this is the level of customizability of the mechs. One of my latest projects is a slow Raven 4X with an XL210, ERLL, AC/5, and a Medium Laser, with the operative idea being practicing for clan lights. I love the loadout and I don't think there's a player on the forums that would accuse that build of being anywhere near meta, but I'm having a blast with it and putting out surprisingly solid numbers.

Constrained to the hardpoint size limitiations? It could never exist. The Raven 4X would just be bad. Small engine, small weapons, bad hitboxes bad. Unusuable, unplayable, unenjoyable.

Right now, you can put good weapons on bad mechs and, with a little practice, hold your own. Remove my ability to put good weapons onto bad mechs? They're screwed. You'd never see them, save for the extremely painful 20 games required to basic them for the "good" variant.

Limiting customizability is bad, as while customizability allows the meta builds to exist, it also allows the non-meta mechs to perform well above their stock loadouts.

Look at the Shadow Hawk. If you constrained that mech to it's stock loadout, or close to it's stock loadout, you've wiped it out of the meta.

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.

[1453 R]

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?

Nope. It's a Hatamoto-Chi.

Also who in their right flippin' mind would pilot a Stock+DHS Charger? That heap is considered in canon to be a horrible failure of a design. Turning it into a Hatamoto-Chi's the best thing that ever happened to it. This, by the way, is the crux of the argument right here - some 'Mechs need new identities, because their TT/canon identities suck. We can fix that with the system in MWO at the moment (sometimes. ...poor Pretty Baby >_>), but with a harshly restrictive 'Stock+DHS' hardpoint sizing system?

i'm guessing you don't really know what DOA means. or what the 'D' in it means at any rate, since a huge variety of currently-great 'Mechs would be quite thoroughly 'D' the minute you instituted a sized hardpoints system. Some 'Mechs roles just aren't desirable in this game, but if we can make the 'Mechs themselves do other things that are useful, why shouldn't we be allowed to do just that?

Edited by 1453 R, 24 April 2014 - 07:47 AM.