110 replies to this topic

[kapusta11]

Trauglodyte, on 14 May 2014 - 10:43 AM, said:

Very valid points, Void. The problem then becomes: How do you limit long ranged weapons up close OR how do you reward close in weapons without making them OP?

SRMs are really where you need to start and the one thing that I can think of is allowing them to benefit from TAG/NARC. Another thing that you could do is to buff Pulse Lasers by either adding in a greater crit chance, ala MGs, and or give them some sort of ancillary benefit. What we can't do, though, is to buff normal tier 1 weapons because everyone carries them anyway which goes back to the feedback loop that you referenced. And, you can't really punish long ranged weapons for firing in close because the PPC already has a minimum range, for as short as it is, and the smaller ACs only had to-hit issues in close in TT. So, how do you translate that to MWO?

Just increase Gauss and PPC recycle times to 6 seconds, thats it. Think you're a good sniper? Then make every shot count.

[Mystere]

Mellifluer, on 13 May 2014 - 02:31 PM, said:

is it just me or is the PPC+AC or just straight lurms really thick as of late?

just played a match where 9 of the enemy had some combo of 2ppc+ac and the other 3 were just lrm boats.

i mean in the end i could care less because it just means i know that my striker mechs are the go-to solution.

but really it is getting stale to watch my team die consistantly to poptarts.

or to see that most of my team is poptarts anyway thus making things like pushing/brawling an unrealistic tactic.

You are in what I call "Elo Hell". You must therefore find your "Elo Heaven", my padawan,

Edited by Mystere, 14 May 2014 - 11:12 AM.

[Mcgral18]

Mystere, on 14 May 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

You are in what I call "Elo Hell". You must therefore find your "Elo Heaven", my padawan,

Seeing as the elo range is set to 1000, that's pretty much impossible.

You'll see both the meta masters and the new players if you're in the middle.

[Mystere]

Mcgral18, on 14 May 2014 - 11:15 AM, said:

Seeing as the elo range is set to 1000, that's pretty much impossible.

You'll see both the meta masters and the new players if you're in the middle.

I must really be lucky then because I do not see much of the former and the latter only bug me on weekends (if at all).

It's either that or I am way above almost everybody else.

Edited by Mystere, 14 May 2014 - 11:21 AM.

[topgun505]

I purposely don't run meta builds just out of principle. Does that gimp me a bit? Sure. But I managed to do 6 kills 4 assists and 1186 in a Cicada with just two ERLL in a game a few days ago so you CAN get some good games with non-meta.

But yes the PPC/AC is rampant.

Do a root cause analysis on it.

Why do we see this?

Because it is the most effective. Ok. Why?

Because it runs relatively cool for the amount of firepower. You only have to expose for an instant to get a shot off which makes it good for pop-sniping. Not all the weapons have a min range so it can still brawl up close if needed. Recycle rate is fast (for some of the weapons) which allows you to keep pressure on the target with dakka. And all of the damage is front loaded pinpoint and is sufficient to break the armor of just about location in around 2 or 3 volleys. There is little in the way of downsides for the build if played effectively (especially in a group of 2 or more so you can cover each other).

[Lykaon]

Assmodeus, on 13 May 2014 - 03:09 PM, said:

So make them streaming weapons? Then they're just lasers with a different graphic. I don't see this as a good solution and I'd rather have variety than homogeneity.

The core issue is the armor mechanics are so closely derived from the table top game mechanics that they have inherited the source mechanics flaws.

Put simply the conditions that break the table top game's armor mechanics also break the MWo armor mechanics.

Battletech the table top game solved this problem by using supporting mechanics.

Die rolls to hit modified by various conditions and circumstances reduced accuracy.
Die rolls randomly determined hit location.
No grouped fire weapons each weapon needed to roll seperately to hit.
Heat and heat scale penalties with progressivley more severe penalties.The more heat the worse the penalty.

MWO derived it's armor mechanics from the table top but failed to apply sufficent support mechanics to make the armor mechanics work.In fact,MWO creates the precise circumstances that cause the armor mechanics to fail.

Group fire,high accuracy and high volume damage.

The reason lasers are second rate weapons is they simulate a support mechanic for the armor mechanics.The duration of the beam from a laser weapon allows the damage to be dispersed over multiple body location (similar to random hit location rolls) and also allows for partial damage loss by having some of the beam miss.And to add one more factor the player recieving damage from the laser can react to alter the laser's impact point or even dodge the players can activley alter the damage pattern by reacting and moving their mechs.

Conversely an Autocannon will apply 100% of it's damage upon a hit to a single body location with the accuracy of the player's skill (not random die rolls) with zero option for the recieving player to react to alter the damage pattern or location.Once the hit happens 100% of the damage is transfered to one location.This is compounded with groupfire mechanics allowing high volume of damage to be applied by this method.

Or,the exact conditions the armor mechancis were isolated from by support mechanics for table top gaming.The autocannon has no mechanics supporting the armor mechanics it in fact produces the exact circumstances the armor mechanics can not handle.

So,solutions would either replace the entire armor mechanics (way to late to do this)
Or,alter the damage dealing method to incorperate supporting elements (burst fire for ACs) doable since this exactaly the plan for Clan ACs.


I used to agree with you I would dislike seeing tactical options lost but at this point in time and after a long period of contemplation on causes and effects I see no easier solution that is both efficent and effective.

If something is causing imbalances and after several attempts to fix it it is still causing imbalance it's time to address the issue directly.Remove the front loading damage from the game.

[Void Angel]

Trauglodyte, on 14 May 2014 - 10:43 AM, said:

Very valid points, Void. The problem then becomes: How do you limit long ranged weapons up close OR how do you reward close in weapons without making them OP?

SRMs are really where you need to start and the one thing that I can think of is allowing them to benefit from TAG/NARC. Another thing that you could do is to buff Pulse Lasers by either adding in a greater crit chance, ala MGs, and or give them some sort of ancillary benefit. What we can't do, though, is to buff normal tier 1 weapons because everyone carries them anyway which goes back to the feedback loop that you referenced. And, you can't really punish long ranged weapons for firing in close because the PPC already has a minimum range, for as short as it is, and the smaller ACs only had to-hit issues in close in TT. So, how do you translate that to MWO?

Well, there's a lot of possible ways to do that, and I'm sure I've only thought of some of them. The first point is that while we do want to maintain that BattleTech feel, we don't have to slavishly implement tabletop rules, or justify changes based on "the lore." The unimportant and sometimes conflicting minutae of BattleMech design that were pushed out to us via flavor text and novels were not what made BattleTech's universe such a fun place to play - and since the tabletop rules were written for a completely different format of game, they don't apply here. That principle applies to earlier MechWarrior titles as well. After all, do we really want PPCs to fire a slow-moving will-o-the-wisp that can be easily dodged at all but the closest ranges? So long as weapons kinda-sorta work like they seem to in BattleTech, they'll still have the right feel - and that's what matters on that score.

What I'd like to see is two things: First, all non-LBX Autocannons going to burst fire - Klans can still do theirs that way; they'll just be longer bursts, like they're thinking about doing Klan lasers. This would take a lot of the pinpoint-damage pressure off, allowing targets to at least roll their torsos and spread damage a bit. Heck, the Locust might even be halfway survivable to pilot, but I digress. The point is, making Autocannons fire in discrete bursts will take the edge off the "all-range powerhouse" nature of most autocannons, and make certain cheese builds require more skill - you'd actually need to bring either very hot or very heavy/slow weapons to truly excel at long ranges, and AC/40 'mechs would need to hold their targets (requiring them to be a hair more vulnerable in exchange for that hideously powerful alpha.

The second thing I'd like to do is kind of revamp the jumping mechanics, including firing. Un-nerf jump jets a bit (the Highlander feels like it's being lifted by a crane, not rising into the sky on wings of fire) and scale it so that you move faster on the way up, but not on the way down. Then implement a debugged version of jump jet shake with a very small amount of reticle judder that affects both reticles, but applies whenever any 'mech is off the ground. Last, disable group fire when off the ground, or simply apply that small judder to weapons individually.

It's a complicated solution, and has a lot of potential bugs and unintended consequences - it's also probably more difficult to engineer than you'd expect, but hey, a guy can dream. The point of these changes is that jump snipers can still do that, but they'll have to forgo their pinpoint accuracy and huge alpha strikes to do it.

[Void Angel]

topgun505, on 14 May 2014 - 11:41 AM, said:

I purposely don't run meta builds just out of principle. Does that gimp me a bit? Sure. But I managed to do 6 kills 4 assists and 1186 in a Cicada with just two ERLL in a game a few days ago so you CAN get some good games with non-meta.

I hate to break it to you, man, but you just described the current Light meta - and despite its weight class, the Cicada counts.

[Pygar]

Psst, in case you guys haven't heard or have somehow forgotten...the Clans are coming in about 1 month- which makes all of this "PPCs/ACs/Gauss are too good" discussion kind of moot...because the meta is going to shift big time, and the "FLD/Pinpoint" weapons are going to be one of the biggest things that (hopefully) keep IS mechs on par with Clan mechs.

Just sayin'. (/discussion over.)

Edited by Pygar, 14 May 2014 - 01:12 PM.

[Wolfways]

You see lots of PPC/AC's and LRM's because there are so many bad players.

[Void Angel]

Harathan, on 13 May 2014 - 02:55 PM, said:

Uncanny how many of those scrubs are competitive 12-mans.