MahKraah, on 22 May 2014 - 05:36 AM, said:
if we are realy at the point that we want to nerv jump sniping we dont need some fancy complicated game changes.
there is already a variable in game that controls convergence(there is a pilot skill for that).
if jumpjet is active it can simply alter the convergence up to a point where 2 or more weapons no longer can hit the same location. without the ability to concentrate 2-3 alpha weapons at a single location jumpsniping will lose its lethality and the "problem" is solved.
That skill currently doesn't do anything, as convergence is "locked" due to issues PGI had implementing it.
Shlkt, on 22 May 2014 - 07:34 AM, said:
Frankly the game modes we have, especially Skirmish, just do a lousy job of forcing an engagement. There's no motivation to fight when you can't do it on your own terms. A good game mode should provide players with an objective to fight over, so that one side or the other must engage or lose via secondary objective. Assault mode doesn't really satisfy that criteria, either; both teams can sit behind their turrets all day without losing until the first kill.
I still maintain that we need a King-of-the-Hill game mode; think Conquest with just one cap point that flips control instantly. A tie would scarcely be possible unless neither team ever ventured out to touch the cap point...
The Conquest mode we have does a good job of preventing ties, but it's still lousy for forcing an engagement. You can literally win while avoiding combat the whole time (not that this happens often, especially on small maps...)
To be fair, the current game modes were designed to allow teams to finish the fight while a single enemy (usually ECM light) was in a corner hiding while shutdown, or, in the case of Skirmish, to prevent CapWarrior matches. They weren't designed for tournament fighting, which is why there should be maps made specifically for these tournaments, IMO.
Nicholas Carlyle, on 22 May 2014 - 08:55 AM, said:
Except you are taking it to the extreme. No one is saying you have to follow TT to the letter.
What we are saying is, since the game is based on Battletech (please don't deny that), we can use Battletech to help us figure out how to balance the game.
Poptarting has been a major issue in this game for a year. We all predicted it would happen, and a lot of us made mention of it before it became a problem.
TT offers a solution...in TT you fired when you landed, you did not fire while in the air. So a simple solution is to implement that in MW:O.
This is a good thing for numerous reasons, because right now, non-jumping mechs are basically second class citizens. Even if you couldn't fire while in the air, mechs with jump jets are supremely better at manuvering due to the stupid terrain restrictions and the way maps are laid out.
Jump sniping is not an issue, IMO. We saw the proper way to defeat a poptart team in the tournament, actually, as they brought tons of Cataphracts with brawling builds (AC5+AC20) and quickly closed the gap and engaged the poptart team where they could not use the terrain to their advantage. People that complain about pop tarting are just upset because they are getting outplayed in tactics.
The real issue is front-loaded damage (FLD). The way to test this is easy. Take the most effective poptart team you can find and force them to equip all those Victors and 3d Phracts with only ERLLs and AC2s, THEN see how effective they are pop tarting.
FLD is also the reason HoL refused to enter the cave (AC40s en masse) and why the brawler attack (AC20+AC5) was effective against the poptarts, as they had far superior FLD compared to the poptarts.
Shlkt, on 22 May 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:
My point is that
regardless or running or jumping, all fire is declared from the hex you end in. Even if you run, you don't get to use LOS from an intermediate hex in order to declare fire. Therefore if you use this rule as justification for saying "mechs never fire while airborne", then it must logically follow that those same 'mechs never fire while running.
And the +2 modifier for running clearly represents the difficulty of getting your weapons back on target after stopping a full sprint
Exactly.
What Nickolas and Haraden (plus others) are failing to understand is that a full turn involves movement AND firing, both of which are handled separately. If you say that you can't fire while jump jetting (movement), that also means you can't fire while running (movement), walking (also movement) or even falling (also movement and technically the same as jumping, but without the upward half). It would also mean that your mech would come to an immediate halt for five seconds as soon as you fired a weapon, and could not move until that 5 seconds was up, even to torso twist (which could only be done during the movement phase).
TT rules were made to simplify things. That is why movement was handled separately from firing, why LRM hits were clustered into groups of five, why missiles rolled to hit and THEN determined how many missiles actually hit, why lasers and MGs did all of their damage in a single hit, etc. Let's not get too crazy with trying to analyze when what happened in a ten-second turn, because it's all just a simplified way to represent a very hectic time period.