28 replies to this topic

[Jun Watarase]

E.G. Only 1 AC20 or Gauss on a mech. May not stack 2 PPCs with ACs. Max of 40 LRMs per mech. Etc.

I think we would see much more varied builds for one thing and the non meta builds would have a smaller DPS gap....

[FupDup]

Jun Watarase, on 19 May 2014 - 07:16 PM, said:

...and the non meta builds would have a smaller DPS gap....

I'm going to address this specific snippet here. Meta builds aren't known for having a DPS advantage. DPS is not the most efficient way to kill mechs. Meta mechs are designed for fire frontloaded alpha strikes (usually at least 30 damage or more) at a specific body panel with pixel-perfect accuracy, for the fastest and cleanest kill possible. DPS is nice for looking cool on scoreboards and for paying lots of spacebucks, but it is not as truly efficient for killing mechs as precision alpha strikes. Meta mechs also tend to use a mixture of ballistics and energy to get both good damage per tonnage (energy) as well as good sustainability (ballistics)...they usually do not boat too many of a single weapon type (barring the old 4 PPC Stalkers).


As for the suggestion itself, it's kind of a bad idea, no offense. It's like heat on a whole new level of lulziness. Just balance the individual weapons and we won't have to play "loadout police" all the time.

Edited by FupDup, 19 May 2014 - 07:28 PM.

[Jun Watarase]

When i say dps i meant damage potential in general, not strictly damage per second.

I think hardcaps would be a great stop gap solution till weapons are balanced. Since it would take years for it to be balanced anyway.

Ghost heat is a bad idea because it doesnt affect ballistic boating, doesnt affect a ton of meta builds and chain firing easily bypasses ghost heat. Ghost heat only stops people from mass boating PPCs to do insane alphas with one click.

A 65 ton mech eating a 100 ton Atlas for breakfast in a straight up slugfest should never happen, but it easily does in MWO because the jagermech pilot can just hold down the mouse button and watch the Atlas evaporate.

[Sephlock]

Jun Watarase, on 19 May 2014 - 07:16 PM, said:

E.G. Only 1 AC20 or Gauss on a mech. May not stack 2 PPCs with ACs. Max of 40 LRMs per mech. Etc.

I think we would see much more varied builds for one thing and the non meta builds would have a smaller DPS gap....

It depends. Would all weapons be hard caps, and where would they be? Because MLAS boats would become super popular again if the system allowed for it. Otherwise, LRMs would (to supplement long range direct fire weapons).

[FupDup]

Jun Watarase, on 19 May 2014 - 07:33 PM, said:

When i say dps i meant damage potential in general, not strictly damage per second.

Oh. In that case, the wording was slightly misleading...

Jun Watarase, on 19 May 2014 - 07:33 PM, said:

I think hardcaps would be a great stop gap solution till weapons are balanced. Since it would take years for it to be balanced anyway.

I'm not a big fan of stopgap-like solutions such as 3/3/3/3 and heat. I'm more of a let's roll up our sleeves and tackle the hard stuff RTFN kind of guy.

Jun Watarase, on 19 May 2014 - 07:33 PM, said:

A 65 ton mech eating a 100 ton Atlas for breakfast in a straight up slugfest should never happen, but it easily does in MWO because the jagermech pilot can just hold down the mouse button and watch the Atlas evaporate.

Assuming a full health Atlas and only a single Jager, it might take a while for the kill to actually happen...unless the Jager is able to keep a constant bead on the Atlas' CT, in which case the Atlas might want to take some better evasive action.

[Flaming oblivion]

Buff energy weapons aside from ppcs , and give them charge packs like ammo a tonn a pack, I'll let the devs figure out the numbers problem solved . PPC's aren't as bad because they cant be used indefinitely and you need charge making them heavier .
Probably put a ppc at around a ac/10s ammo.

Edited by Flaming oblivion, 19 May 2014 - 07:42 PM.

[Wolfways]

Jun Watarase, on 19 May 2014 - 07:33 PM, said:

A 65 ton mech eating a 100 ton Atlas for breakfast in a straight up slugfest should never happen, but it easily does in MWO because the jagermech pilot can just hold down the mouse button and watch the Atlas evaporate.

So you want to remove stock weapon configurations?

Btw, the Atlas is the worst assault mech in the game because they are so slow that you can pretty much keep all your fire concentrated on the CT.

[El Bandito]

Jun Watarase, on 19 May 2014 - 07:16 PM, said:

E.G. Only 1 AC20 or Gauss on a mech. May not stack 2 PPCs with ACs. Max of 40 LRMs per mech. Etc. I think we would see much more varied builds for one thing and the non meta builds would have a smaller DPS gap....

My A1 is fine with that.

[Kassatsu]

Flaming oblivion, on 19 May 2014 - 07:41 PM, said:

Buff energy weapons aside from ppcs , and give them charge packs like ammo a tonn a pack, I'll let the devs figure out the numbers problem solved . PPC's aren't as bad because they cant be used indefinitely and you need charge making them heavier .
Probably put a ppc at around a ac/10s ammo.

So instead of being energy-based weapons, you want hitscan ballistics that fire in bursts with a reload time?

No.

[Khobai]

Quote

I think we would see much more varied builds for one thing and the non meta builds would have a smaller DPS gap...

You wouldnt see more varied builds. People would still just use whatever build gave them the most pinpoint. The problem is pinpoint damage is better than everything else. Thats what needs to change in order to see more variation: removal of pinpoint damage.

Besides crap like hard caps and ghost heat is completely counterintuitive and defeats the whole purpose of customization. I should be able to run a 4 PPC mech if I want to and fire all 4 PPCs at once without penalty. PPCs shouldve been designed in such a way that firing 4 of them at once was perfectly balanced (i.e. ppc arcing damage). If were going to limit customization with artificial mechanisms why even have customization? Why dont we just have stock mechs only? derp.

So im gonna have to say no to hard caps, yes to removal of ghost heat, and yes to some *actual* weapon balancing in the form of ACs firing in bursts and PPCs doing arcing damage. A battle value system would be nice too so matchmaker can actually discern the difference between a bad build and a good one.

Edited by Khobai, 19 May 2014 - 09:38 PM.

[Curccu]

I vote for ONE weapon for each mech... no more boating?

[wanderer]

Because just saying "No" to that wasn't enough.

Breaking half the designs in the stock game renders your potential solution useless, not to mention it basically means "if weapon is good then we'd just make it impossible to mount more than two."

[Xeraphale]

I don't tink there should be a hard cap on weapons, but there should be limitations on the size of weapons which can be placed on certain types of mech. For example, the hunchback (is it 4G?) would be allowed to load several one slot energy weapons plus one massive ballistic slot (the AC/20). Whereas the Raven 4X would only be alowed two small ballistic slots, negating the ability to load anything bigger than an AC/2 (the RVN-4X can curently load an AC/20, which is just ridiculous.

This would give the mechs back their original flavour and might reduce the effectiveness of some of the meta builds.

Also, this is the method of constructing a mech in Mechwarrior tactics and it works perfectly. While it does put an extra limitation on customisation, it does make building a mech more interesting and makes the chassis choice more important. As it stands right now we can do more or less the same things with most diferent chassis.

[Mechteric]

It would be about as dumb as ghost heat

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 20 May 2014 - 06:02 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Jun Watarase, on 19 May 2014 - 07:16 PM, said:

E.G. Only 1 AC20 or Gauss on a mech. May not stack 2 PPCs with ACs. Max of 40 LRMs per mech. Etc.

I think we would see much more varied builds for one thing and the non meta builds would have a smaller DPS gap....

It would break with Canon. Warhammer, Marauder, Longbow, and many other Mechs would be banned and would make many of us sad.

[Rhent]

OP, your idea is a horrible idea. Armor was doubled to compensate for people being able to aim their weapons in MWO unlike their weapons hitting a random location via a hit table in Battle Tech. Players would move the to the next meta build and then you would be complaining about fast brawler laser boats with AC back up.

[Lightfoot]

For a Battletech Game, MWO is already very restrained in what players are allowed to do. You realize that right? Usually in MechWarrior games players are pushing the envelope with 5 to 6 LLAS fired as a group (instant hit lasers mind you), 4xLRM20 not uncommon, or 3xLRM20 with 2x ERPPC's, 2-3 LBX20, etc. Those payloads are only attainable by 75 ton and higher mechs and make life very hard for Mediums and Lights.

So MWO has taken a different spin on this and made Heavies and Assaults very limited in hardpoints to create a modable hard cap on how much damage they can do. So you see the Swayback with 9 energy hardpoints while the AWS-8Q has only 7, even though for the extra 30 tons it should logically have 12. This is done to make the damage output of all Mech classes roughly balanced with Speed and Armor and Deflection. So the gameplay is radically different for each weight class, but the outcome is based on the player's skill in piloting, aiming, and Mechlab.

Mechlab gives MechWarrior endless replayability and everyone gets the same tools. And is a feature unique to MechWarrior in that the loadout options are so high. Higher than any other mech-styled game. The only change I would recommend here is that the Hardpoints be sized by criticals and you can add to the hardpoint until all criticals are used or some type of added flexibility for the new size constraint.

The only Hard Cap MWO needs is Heat, and then get rid of DHS 1.4 because it would no longer be needed.

I have to add that Ghost Heat is also a damage-cap nerf aimed at Assaults and Heavies while Mediums and Lights are mostly unaffected.

So, in closing if you still want more damage nerfs even after all this I think you need to examine individual piloting skill as the problem. Try to always keep good lateral movement to opponents, even when closing or retreating to keep a high deflection profile and promote more misses. I know this is hard with a Mouse, which is why I use a Joystick (don't laugh, I am usually in the top 3 in games). Suit yourself on your controller, but never go straight at your opponent(s), you are just begging them to unload on you. Whereas, if you move laterally you force them to not fire those PPCs and ACs together, or guarentee that one of the weapon-types will miss or hit an arm, etc. You get the same result as the cap you propose, but you did it with your own skill and forced everyone else to match you in skill.

Edited by Lightfoot, 20 May 2014 - 07:01 AM.

[Agent of Change]

Rhent, on 20 May 2014 - 06:09 AM, said:

OP, your idea is a horrible idea. Armor was doubled to compensate for people being able to aim their weapons in MWO unlike their weapons hitting a random location via a hit table in Battle Tech. Players would move the to the next meta build and then you would be complaining about fast brawler laser boats with AC back up.

While I completely agree that the Op is now (and usually) wrong I do have to respond negatively to your post.

The doubling of armor was a half assed, completely ineffective hand wave at a more serious problem. Universal Pin point convergence at any range

The problem with "player aim": Universal Pin point convergence at any range
The problem with most Boats: Universal Pin point convergence at any range
The problem with massed lasers: Universal Pin point convergence at any range
A major problem with PPC's:Universal Pin point convergence at any range
The huge problem with AC's + PPC's: Universal Pin point convergence at any range
What used to be the problem with Gauss + whatever (usually PPC's) : Universal Pin point convergence at any range

Doubling the armor doesn't mean **** when players can actively aim with Universal Pin point convergence at any range. And that causes the biggest issue, short TTK. Were they to Triple armor it might get a bit more "Slug it out", and feel a bit more MWO giant robot warfare and less hide behind rocks because my "war machine" is covered in wet tissues, But it would still be a half-measure. One of the major issues since way back when is and has always been Universal Pin point convergence at any range, and addressing that would allow for the undoing of a lot of the bad half-assed weapons balancing that's been done to treat the symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself.

Removing Universal Pin point convergence at any range would not mean you had to remove player skill, or any stupid hyperbole like that, but it would improve the game greatly.

Edited by Agent of Change, 20 May 2014 - 07:02 AM.

[RussianWolf]

Sized hardpoints ala MW4 I would support (K2's ballistic points should be no larger than 2 slots for example), but caps on number of weapons arbitrarily.... No.

Edited by RussianWolf, 20 May 2014 - 07:22 AM.

[Almond Brown]

RussianWolf, on 20 May 2014 - 07:22 AM, said:

Sized hardpoints ala MW4 I would support (K2's ballistic points should be no larger than 2 slots for example), but caps on number of weapons arbitrarily.... No.

That is a joke right? Restrict the K2 to only AC2's or MG's for its Ballistics? LOL!