205 replies to this topic

[Josef Nader]

But all light mechs have had the weapons scaled down, even the ones that are supposed to be there. Blame the weapon art normalization, not the customization system.

[Jun Watarase]

PGI will never put in size hardpoints, at least not for another year.

This is why : It will require substantial work.

This is the same company who has, for 2 years since closed beta started, flat out refused to address 99% of queries from the playerbase and takes about 6 months or more to make substantial balance changes on average. This is why it took 2 years for LRMs to be somewhat decent (as opposed to 30 LRMs doing less than 1% damage) and why we have been stuck with ballistic boating for uh....a year? Possibly more?

This is something that simply involves editing some text files, which takes maybe a few minutes max to do. And instead of doing it every patch, letting us test it, and then changing the numbers for the next patch....we get basically nothing for most patches. Even the AC nerfs were completely pointless since it didnt address the PPC/AC poptarting sniping metagame at all, it made them worse for direct fire engangements (which is what they are meant for...). Just like how the AC 10 and 20 projectile speed decreases had nothing to do with fixing ballistic boating. I'm not sure how these decisions were made (because they clearly were not made based on player feedback) but i think it had to do with some devs getting killed by ballistics at long range who then pushed the (wrong) changes through to fix the "imba op bs wtf???".

It is obvious that making ballistic hardpoint changes would take a substantial amount of time and resources...and PGI really doesn't like that. That's why there has been so little changes after 2 years of development since closed beta started. Why we still dont have community warfare, and why UI 2.0 didnt incorporate any of the suggestions the playetesters gave it (which is why its more time consuming and less user friendly than the old UI). Almost every change to MWO has been in the form of maps, new mechs, hero/champion mechs, and cosmetics. Largely stuff that is either easy to make (maps in cryengine are not hard, ask any modder) or can be sold for MC.

PGI knows that by creating new stuff that can be sold and simply keeping the servers up, people will continue to buy MC and buy whatever it is they produce. They don't HAVE to put in the work needed to fix weapon balance or add features like community warfare. After all, they got millions everytime they sold a "rare exclusive package" like the phoenix mechs or the clan mechs. In the eyes of PGI, they can see a direct link between spending X dollars to make a new mech and the Y dollars it brings in. Things like weapon balance and other stuff that cant be sold however...they cant quantify it. They cant look at something like UI 2.0 and say "oh we spent this many man hours on it, this much development budget, and we made X dollars profit in Y time frame, it was a great investment!". So they only allocate minimal/spare resources to it, in the hopes that when they do release something new or fix something old, players will be encouraged to come back and spend MC.

As proof, the last time PGI released staff numbers, the majority of staff they had working full time on things like mechs...stuff that can be sold fo MC. That's hard, solid proof, right from PGI, that they prioritize that above all else.

I just remembered that when clan mechs came out, i challenged PGI to let me make some balance changes and i guaranteed weapon balance would be dramatically improved. I think it involved buying a gold mech if i lost the bet. Im pretty sure PGI never bothered to get back to me on that...

And i think thats why we should all stop making suggestions. It is clearly not working. The past two years have very solidly proved my point...i believe every single person who has been here for some times know whats im referring to. There have been countless suggestions on a wide number of critical issues...only a tiny portion have been adopted, virtually none got public acknowledgement, and any of the ones that did get adopted...there is no proof whatsoever that it was adopted because a player submitted a well thought out suggestions which was well received by the community. It could very well have been some devs who just stumbled onto a similar idea while having some drinks or because one of their friends suggested it too.

Well thought out suggestions take a lot of time and effort to write up, as well as solid understanding of the game and it's mechanics. I could for example spend a dozen hours summarizing all the issues the game has along with suggestions for each. But here's the thing, why should i do that?.

Well normally you do it because you want to improve the game. But for that to happen, your suggestions would have to be addressed...not necessarily adopted blindly, but there has to be a sense that they are being taken seriously. That sense, has never really been there...while some other game companies have staff and community managers who participate in the exchange of ideas, they go into serious threads and discuss whether or not they plan to do something similar, what the pros/cons of it are, etc....this has never happened for PGI. I dont remember it happening during beta either, even getting acknowledgement that something was a bug and not a feature was pretty difficult.

You know sometimes your company or school or whatever gets the great idea to put a suggestion box somewhere and...nothing happens? You dont even know if anyone checks that box. You put stuff in it and it vanishes. And nothing changes. Thats the kind of feeling we have here from PGI. I mean size hardpoints has been pointed out on day 1 of closed beta when people went "uh hey PGI, you know people are going to start boating stuff like crazy on mechs that were never designed for it? Like AC20s on the CPLT-K2?" and the closest thing we got to a response was...in some interview IIRC....that PGI "might" look at it in the future. And im not even sure if they acknowledged size hardpoints or just that they will examine all alternatives.

So really, stop making suggestions. Or at least putting lots of effort into it. It takes up YOUR valuable time. You do not get paid for this. You do not get any acknowledgement. You do not get to see your idea adopted 99.99% of the time. You are not rewarded, in any way, for your time and effort expenditure. It is just not worth it. Unless you have no life.

We could discuss this for the next year, the next 50 pages, and nothing would change. Size hardpoints wont go in. Boating will remain unchallenged. And patch after patch we will get more mechs for sale...and people will buy them. 6 months down the road, we will get another clan package sale or whatever, and people will reach for their wallets while salivating at the thought of early access to an exclusive mech with 25% more c-bills, can you believe that??? And PGI will be flush with millions again, and they will tell themselves that this is exactly what they need to do to bring in the money.

Citation : Historical evidence of MWO since closed beta, 2 years + ago.

[1453 R]

cdlord, on 25 April 2014 - 07:28 AM, said:

I honestly quit reading you a while ago. The fact that you seem to feel the need to use caps and underlines and italics means you're overreacting. Calm down... No amount of font editing will make me go away and your efforts are being ignored because they are ignorant and stubborn. I have several posts with other ideas and even a few counterpoints to them. Besides, you're not my supervisor!

I.e. the usual dismissal made by folks who don’t have any reasonable arguments left to make. ‘Nyah nyah nyah, I can’t heeaar yoouu!’ Good to know you’re such a reasonable guy yourself, CD. Amazing rebuttal. I am humbled by your subtle and masterful grip of logic and debate. Really. Completely humbled. See this? This is my humbled face.

dimstog, on 25 April 2014 - 07:39 AM, said:

I think the main point is that since the Panther, Urbanmech, Raven, etc can do this, there is no point enabling the Spider to do it as well and that a more restricted hardpoint system would enable the Spider to do what the other mechs can't.

It's a slippery slope either way, but I tend to agree more with the restricted system.

Do you like Spiders? Because Spiders can’t do jack that other ‘Mechs can’t, even with a tightly restrictive Stock+DHS hardpoint sizing system. Not in MWO.

Right now the Spider is good because of its excellent jump mobility and small, spindly profile, enabling it to play as a highly vexing harasser and a successful professional Squirrel – when mated to just enough armament to make it a legitimate threat if ignored. That isn’t, however, the Spiders Traditional Canonical TableTop Role. The Spider’s TCTTR is purely as a reconnaissance ‘Mech, minimally armed and not designed/meant to engage the enemy at all unless it has absolutely no other choice. This is what the Spider is ‘supposed’ to do, what it’s supposed to be good at.

Tell me – is there any room in MWO whatsoever for a don’t-shoot-the-other-guy pure scouting ‘Mech?

Some Traditional Canonical TableTop Roles just don’t work in MWO. Best possible example: Firestarter. The Firestarter’s role is to start fires and control enemy movement and positioning by putting giant froggin’ forest burns between the baddies and where they want to be, and also to be an unholy diabolical nightmare to enemy infantry units. These are the Firestarter’s TCTTRs. Neither of them is even possible in MWO. You are fundamentally unable to start fires on maps which are universally 100% constructed of shaped-and-painted Unbreakium, and you cannot go hog-wild on infantry support units that don’t exist. The Firestarter’s TCTTR cannot be achieved in MWO…but the sized hardpoints people want it restricted to flamers and machine guns anyways, because the excellent 4xmedium/3xsmall dual AMS FS9-S ‘obsoletes all other light ‘Mechs! Why should we even bother with things like the Mongoose when the stupid Firestarter does what the Mongoose does but better?!”

I love my Firestarters. They look amazing, they're great fun to run, and they kick a whole lot of tail. Don't you dare tell me I have to play them as flamer boats because that's what they were in TT. Tell me how a flamer boat meant to start forest fires manages to do its job in MWO first.

Same with things like the JagerMech, whose TCTTR is to be an anti-aircraft platform. What, exactly, is the JagerMech going to shoot down? Someone mentioned the Charger earlier – well, the Charger’s TCTTR, as listed in its own froggin’ TRO entry, is to be a failure. Pretty much every canonical variant of the Charger is an attempt to turn it into a more conventional, and thus useful, assault ‘Mech.

Take away our ability to change out the weapons on our ‘Mechs, but leave the ability to dump the worst of the bad guns, switch over to Endo/Ferro/DHS, and slap in the biggest engines we can find room for…and you leave ‘Mechs like the Spider completely in the dust. Everything else in its weight class can hit its mobility profiles, practically everything else in its weight class carries two to five times its armament. All it has going for it is its narrow profile, which it can no longer really take advantage of because we took away its ability to bring anything to the fight but a navel-mounted medium laser or two. Anyone with any smarts just brushes the little bug~gers (really, Piranha?! Your cuss filters need ALL THE WORK O_O) off because it’s incapable of hurting them, whereas right now you have to be honestly careful and nervous around a good Spider pilot.

You want a good reason to play the ‘Mechs you love? Why is loving those ‘Mechs not enough reason to play them? I still have my Ravens and regularly run around in them simply because it’s been one of my favorite chassis since the days of MW2. Doesn’t matter that they have Quickdraw-sized legs and really bad hardpoints – just means I have to run them differently and maybe take a bit more care. I would play my Shadowhawks into the ground even if they were worse than Hunchbacks, just because I love Shadowhawks. That ‘Mech was a fond part of my childhood – I squee’d like mad when I saw the Phoenix Package was going to finally, finally, finally(!) give me the chance to run around in one of my very own.

You like Awesomes? Play Awesomes. Find a way to make them work, and then you can feel even more awesome when you get the final killing blow in on that metajumping Highlander in the red-headed stepchild of the assault classification. Play that Hunchback! Go out and wreak havoc in those Cicadas – I know I do! Play those Lolcusts without a care in the world! Who gives a snot – really, who does? You don’t need to wreck half the ‘Mechs in the game in order to feel like you can be justified in playing what you like – just go out there and PLAY IT!

Edited by 1453 R, 25 April 2014 - 09:31 AM.

[Prezimonto]

Josef Nader, on 25 April 2014 - 02:48 AM, said:

Except they wouldn't, because mechs like the Warhhawk exist, and allowing the Warhawk to run around hitting things with 40 damage alphas from map-sheets away is a problem. Just because you've restricted it to the Warhawk doesn't make it any better.

Alright hardpoint sizers, let's have a little thought experiment.

I love the Dragon. A lot of people here think the Dragon is a crappy mech, and they're totally right. It was awful with it's stock loadout in tabletop, and it's awful for most of the common roles here in MWO. It's got bad hitboxes and it's in the awkward transition zone between mediums and heavies, which forces it to either undergun itself to get going fast enough or cut so deeply into it's speed that it gets outplayed by other slow heavies.

I freaking love the Dragon.

I noticed that the Dragon's shoulder energy hardpoint is level with the cockpit, and the cockpit is the highest point on the mech. This makes the Dragon one of the best peek snipers in the game if you slap an ERPPC on there. Take a look:

DRG-1C

Ignore the gauss rifle for most of your sniping, as you're trying to avoid exposure, but if you have a clear shot and you can jam your right arm around a corner, it's worth throwing in there. You can replicate that loadout on the Fang, which represents half of my Dragon stable. It's fast, it outguns anything that can keep up with it, and it's something completely unique to the Dragon. A high-speed ERPPC sniper with enough weight to pack some serious backup punch is not something I can do on any other chassis, and this is the only loadout I've found that turns the Dragon from a mediocre fast attack platform into a serious threat on the battlefield.

Now, let's take a look at a stock Dragon 1C...

DRG-1C

Hmm. In none of these systems (limited number of crits per hardpoint, small/large, tiny/small/medium/large/huge) can my Dragon build exist. It's made of dinky, tiny hardpoints. This was it's downfall in tabletop, and it's a big part of why people don't like it in MWO.

Restrict my ability to slap large weapons onto the Dragon and you've killed the Dragon. Period. It goes away forever.

Oh, but you could balance it so that you -can- put large weapons on the Dragon!

Then what's the bloody point of this ridiculously complex and arbitrary system in the first damn place?

Unless, of course, you're just trying to eliminate the mechs and loadouts that you personally don't like. Well, tough toenails. People will run what people want to run. Learn to adapt.

And because I know folks are going to call me a meta humper, I don't have a single mech in my stables that mounts a pair of PPCs and a pair of AC/5s. The closest approximation is my Firebrand, which is a pair of larges, a pair of AC/5s, and a pair of mediums because I wanted to play one of my favorite tabletop heavies. I'm not against this idea because I'm afraid you're going to take my meta away, I'm against this idea because it will kill my ability to make use of the vast majority of my 65+ mechs, which I have deviated far from their original tabletop loadouts to make effective/enjoyable to me. Further limiting hardpoints kills mechs, plain and simple.

I agree. It's why one of the only two hero mechs I own is a Flame... it's a great peek sniper with Gauss.

Collisions with knockdown help the Dragon a LOT. There's a reason it used to be called dragon bowling. Even with a physics based damage model, the dragon's currently awkward tonnage is actually in a pretty good sweet spot between engine size/speed/ and ability take damage from a collision. Big enough you can hunt down most medium mechs (not the smallest, but most) and with enough mass and velocity your dangerous to bigger mechs.. .all with enough armor to actually manage taking a hit or two from a collision.

If we're getting really crazy, add that you'd got a battle fist on one arm and an auto cannon on the other, in an ideal work, I should be able to knock someone over, grab them with the battle fist, and pump AC rounds into them with the other arm.

The Dragon suffers from a lack of imagination on the part of the developers.


On the topic of size hard points:

I know Almond doesn't like the idea, but a really simple solution is to make huge weapons take up crit slots and hard point slots. To avoid having to remodel any current mechs, give any that don't have the nessecary hardpoints for the weapons they mount a quirk or two to allow it anyway.

It seems arbitrary, but it's a relatively consistent system that preserves the affect hardpoint sizes would have on the game, without having to recode the whole system and remodel a large number of mechs.

[Demuder]

1453 R, on 25 April 2014 - 09:20 AM, said:

Do you like Spiders? Because Spiders can’t do jack that other ‘Mechs can’t, even with a tightly restrictive Stock+DHS hardpoint sizing system. Not in MWO.

Right now the Spider is good because of its excellent jump mobility and small, spindly profile, enabling it to play as a highly vexing harasser and a successful professional Squirrel – when mated to just enough armament to make it a legitimate threat if ignored. That isn’t, however, the Spiders Traditional Canonical TableTop Role. The Spider’s TCTTR is purely as a reconnaissance ‘Mech, minimally armed and not designed/meant to engage the enemy at all unless it has absolutely no other choice. This is what the Spider is ‘supposed’ to do, what it’s supposed to be good at.

Tell me – is there any room in MWO whatsoever for a don’t-shoot-the-other-guy pure scouting ‘Mech?

.........

You like Awesomes? Play Awesomes. Find a way to make them work, and then you can feel even more awesome when you get the final killing blow in on that metajumping Highlander in the red-headed stepchild of the assault classification. Play that Hunchback! Go out and wreak havoc in those Cicadas – I know I do! Play those Lolcusts without a care in the world! Who gives a snot – really, who does? You don’t need to wreck half the ‘Mechs in the game in order to feel like you can be justified in playing what you like – just go out there and PLAY IT!

Dude, calm down, it was just an example. As I posted already both sides do have valid arguments and funnily enough every argument you have about the spider being able to mount large guns can be used exactly against it being able to do that.

For example, if not all lights could be outfitted as Speedy Gonzales Harbingers of Death, then yes, people might start to use them for different roles. You and I have seen many times lights walking behind assaults, waiting for the heavies and assaults to make contact so that they get a chance to go behind the enemies and start unloading. Or lights sitting on top of a mountain waiting to rain deadly sniper single (ER)PPC on the heads of the enemies that the assaults will have to scout out for. I know, I know, it's bad piloting above all, not the mech or the loadout itself, but even being able to do that, does play its part in that silliness. Silliness for me at least.

I know, maybe I am focusing too much on lights, but even the occasional (nowadays) AC40 Jag just rubs me all the wrong ways. Maybe it's personal taste. I would rather being shot all day by run of the mill poptart Victors than monstrosities like Gaussaphracts or the now obsolete 4xPPC Stalkers. At least the current 2xPPC/2xAC5 Victor does make some sense.

My point is that both sides will produce builds that will be abused and overused and builds that will be thrown in a dusty mechbay never to drop again. Personally, I prefer the restricted ones, just as far as my personal aesthetics go,, but in the end the result will be almost the same.

At least right now and for the past month, I am seeing more builds in my matches that I can consider sane builds, instead of the boating monstrosities we had a few months back. Maybe it's my ELO going up or down, or heaven forbid, people starting to play the game to enjoy rather than to pawn.

[Josef Nader]

Or maybe, heaven forbid, the balance is actually getting significantly better and you can do well with a huge variety of loadouts.

[CDLord HHGD]

I'd like to point out an opportunity for PGI in this suggestion too. Having sized hardpoints (Small Ballistic, Large Energy, Large Missile, etc) would also give PGI the ability to classify a hardpoint as a small or large universal hardpoint. When talking about Omni's, that's HUGE.....

[OneEyed Jack]

Magnakanus, on 25 April 2014 - 06:12 AM, said:

Ok, I think I get where you are coming from now. I have a bit more faith that if done properly (OMG, what am I talking about... PGI, properly...nah) it SHOULD make more mechs more interesting. Also noting the fact that IMO the limits need to be paired with well defined quirks to be "good".

What I am annoyed with in the moment is that you have, say, a 35 ton mech that does x. A new 35 ton mech comes out with the same or similar hard-points in different places and the first reaction is "can't be bothered, my blah does that". Joke builds are good for a laugh, but, what other real purpose do they serve than a lark here and there? It really seems like a shame and a waste.

Even if the game was restricted to stock loadouts, that would happen. It's inevitable as long as they continue to release new mechs, because mechs only do a finite number of things, even more so with a number of roles having no useful purpose in MWO. Quirks can only do so much before you get into the realm of of magic (or silly anime crap).

The reason to play the new mech instead of the old one? Some people will just like it better. Maybe it's the precise placement of the weapons. Maybe it's the graphics, or a nostalgic love of a particular chassis from TT, Lore, or previous titles. Maybe it's an RP thing, wanting their own House's mech, especially when there's price differences from CW. Maybe it's just the "feel" of the cockpit.

[Sweet Baby Pirate]

They really need to consider this. Each hardpoint should have a crit limit of the weapon occupying it in the stock build. The pinpoint meta would be limited to a few chassis types which could then be tuned individually - less agility, armour etc. Then just be a bit more generous for the clan mechs. No need for ghost heat, gauss charge, potato head clan mechs... hey, I can dream

[Demuder]

Josef Nader, on 25 April 2014 - 10:12 AM, said:

Or maybe, heaven forbid, the balance is actually getting significantly better and you can do well with a huge variety of loadouts.

Maybe it's exactly as you say, that there's finally some balance enabling different loadouts - though I personally have never been able to make LB-10X or SLs work in anything other than a "fun" build and will always fit the largest AC I fit.

I could however make the argument that a restricted system would not be unable to reach such a balance, in fact I believe it would be able to reach it much more easily than the current one.

[GalaxyBluestar]

not going to happen it's been talked about for years and the mech lab functions would have to be reprogrammed... pgi has not or will not do it.

here's a years worth of wanting it

hardpoints jun 23 2013
aug 27 2013

may 29 2013
oct 4 2013

april 5 2013

oh even found one from:

june 11 2012

yep 2 so years this hase been debated and it's not happening. sad but true.

[Asmudius Heng]

Blacksoul1987, on 25 April 2014 - 03:39 AM, said:

did most of the people wanting sized hardpoints not play MechWarrior 4? it most certainly didn't work in that game there was very little diversity but there were certainly a lot of chassis collecting dust in the mechlab.

I played a lot of MW4 and the fact certain chassis sucked was not soley because of hardpoint limitations. Here is a lit of issues that MW4 created for itself.

- No critical slots and no limit on heat sinks
- pinpoint convergeance allowed stacking of multiple smaller weapons to be powerful still ... so they nerfed small weapons so hard into the ground they were worthless.
- Heat scale was borked on the high end making high end energy mechs less punishing that they should be
- Weapon balance was not great in general.

MW4 had a solid idea with the hardpoints but did not follow through with so many other mech building features. No one is arguing for a return to MW4 either this is misleading ... the hardpoints number is a good idea combined with the original mech building template from Battletech - all some are asking is that these hardpoints are given some sort of size rating to further differentiate mechs.

YES meta builds will still exist, that is a function is poor balancing not of hardpoint sizes ... meta builds will ALWAYS exist and that is FINE as long as there are a good number of them across the board filling multiple roles.

Optimised mechs will exist and gamers will find them no matter the system as long as that meta game is very broad and not so NARROW as what we have right now.

Hardpoint sizes do not solve any major problem right now, but they do bring more variety as long as the developers use it as a tool for balance which it should be alone with the mobility quirks and placement of hardpoints on a mech etc

Balance is a different argument to hardpoint sizes - they are related though - which is why these threads always devlove because they try and mix the two unsuccessfully because they are trying to jam them into the same hole.

[RedDragon]

Asmudius Heng, on 26 April 2014 - 10:14 PM, said:

Hardpoint sizes do not solve any major problem right now, but they do bring more variety as long as the developers use it as a tool for balance which it should be alone with the mobility quirks and placement of hardpoints on a mech etc

Well, they would render GH obsolete, because the only mech that could carry 3 PPCs would be the Awesome. And that one has so many drawbacks (no JJ, slow, big target) that meta humpers won't cling to it.
And we wouldn't need that stupid Gauss recharge any more, because there would be... wait for it... not a single mech that could carry 2 Gauss, let alone Gauss + 2 PPCs (maybe not even Gauss + PPC, but there may be a variant out there I can't think of right now... wouldn't be a problem though).

[Black Ivan]

Implement hardpoint sizes is a good idea, but it also needs a rebalancing of all weapons.

[CDLord HHGD]

GalaxyBluestar, on 26 April 2014 - 04:14 AM, said:

not going to happen it's been talked about for years and the mech lab functions would have to be reprogrammed... pgi has not or will not do it.

here's a years worth of wanting it

hardpoints jun 23 2013
aug 27 2013

may 29 2013
oct 4 2013

april 5 2013

oh even found one from:

june 11 2012

yep 2 so years this hase been debated and it's not happening. sad but true.

So? Doesn't mean the issue isn't going away.... There was a problem back then and still one today. If we bring it up enough, then maybe PGI will devote some consideration to this or one of the many other ideas floating around.

[Relic1701]

I've been banging on about since some bright spark took 2 tiny machine guns out of the K2, and replaced then two honking great AC20's, back in June 2 years ago.....

[Almond Brown]

Sybreed, on 24 April 2014 - 02:53 PM, said:

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.

Good point Sybreed. Perhaps SC can be the "Litmus" test to see how many of the (hopefully 100's) ships they design that actually see Battle regularly after the min/max'ers run up a quick spreadsheet.

[Almond Brown]

Josef Nader, on 24 April 2014 - 03:13 PM, said:

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.

And if not done to the liking of those who like the idea, we are right back here, listening to complaints about why "insert mech here" is busted all to hell under this new "amazing idea", until of course, the reality of it all sets in.

AC, on 24 April 2014 - 03:18 PM, said:

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.

Could we use the Leg crit space?

[Josef Nader]

I really need to stop posting from my phone. I just realized how many autocorrect errors are in there. Yikes. >_>

[Almond Brown]

Xarian, on 24 April 2014 - 03:33 PM, said:

Those 'struggling' variants aren't typically that bad - they are just worse when compared to other specific variants. By restricting those variants further, you are making the 'struggling' variants more attractive in a relative sense.

Huh? Your argument here seems to be "people won't stop playing mechs that are no longer possible to build"... which doesn't make sense.

1) Chassis determines things like your speed, agility, ammo, and whether or not you can jump. So yes, the chassis is very important.
2) It will allow removal of ghost heat because builds like 6x PPC or 2x AC/20 will no longer be possible.
3) It introduces more diversity in the mech variants being used.
4) It makes "glass cannon" medium mechs more attractive because they can have disproportionately large amounts of weaponry compared to more popular medium mechs (e.g. hunchback compared to shadowhawk)
5) It will allow for additional tweaks to the weapons to address balance issues that would not otherwise be possible without upsetting game balance in the current environment. For example, removing ghost heat from AC/20s and further lowering their heat and refire rate by 15% would be a huge change in the current environment because any mech with a ballistic slot in the torso (and some in the arms) can equip them - this would lead to a dramatic upswing in the usage of AC/20s. On the other hand, if only a handful of mechs could actually equip them in their torsos or arms (e.g. Yen-Lo-Wang, Atlas, Cataphract, Hunchback, etc) then you wouldn't change the game balance particularly much. You would, however, see an increase in the amount of people playing mechs who were designed to use the AC/20 rather than seeing people trying to cram them on any old fast mech with jump jets.

It's would be a positive change.

We have seen a Crit slot size system before in MW. It was not the best many would say and it could be tweaked. Sure it could, but we're talking about changing a Core system that will invariably leave some players very pissed off that their Mech of choice was neutered from what is is now. Hell, perhaps it may be one of yours... Who gets to choose the system and how much time and effort gets put into the total re-design, and when it is done, and testing shows it isn't the bees knees so many think, then what?

Besides, I really don;t think that removing the ability for a few Mech to carry 2 x AC20 will improve the game at all. It is nothing but a very "slippery Slope" that once started down...