41 replies to this topic

[Magna Canus]

Tombstoner, on 30 May 2014 - 05:45 AM, said:

As it is a single atlas facing off against 3 heavies is a joke.

Honestly, killing one 100 ton mech with three 65 ton mechs (twice the tonnage, nearly 3x the firepower) should be a joke. Driving an assault should not be a free rambo pass. Reducing TTK across the board is a fine idea, but not for the sole purpose of attempting to raise the assault mech to the level of "solo lance killer". With that you just invalidate light/medium mechs entirely. Even more if the intent is to allow assault mechs to solo duel a trio of heavies.

[Artgathan]

One approach that I've long thought would be interesting is to have reduced critical damage for certain weapons (IE: when they start hitting exposed internals they do less damage). This would really force players to bring varied loadouts (or coordinate team loadouts to cover weaknesses), or else risk having their damage potential severely gimped once a mech's armor comes off.

This could help to increase TTK.

[Tombstoner]

Magnakanus, on 30 May 2014 - 06:15 AM, said:

Honestly, killing one 100 ton mech with three 65 ton mechs (twice the tonnage, nearly 3x the firepower) should be a joke. Driving an assault should not be a free rambo pass. Reducing TTK across the board is a fine idea, but not for the sole purpose of attempting to raise the assault mech to the level of "solo lance killer". With that you just invalidate light/medium mechs entirely. Even more if the intent is to allow assault mechs to solo duel a trio of heavies.

it is because of the synergy between pin point damage and lack of size compensation for the atlas.

Target size if not corrected for is a huge weakness. A 100 ton mech should be able to hold off 3-4 heavies untill 1-2 of them gets behind the assault and its game over. Armor protection took a huge hit during the port from TT to FPS and speed became a huge benefit. size was never addressed but it clearly is a factor in someone ability to 1- hit the target and 2- select where the damage is placed.

This is not about raising the assaults to Rambo status. the amount of armor they would get can simply be a 10 % boost. hardly turing an atlas into rambo. but an atlas should with in its weight class has a substantially improved TTk then the awesome. 15 tones of armor vs 19. that 4 tones spread over the entire mech is really about 8 -12 seconds more life.

Facing off against 3 heavies with pin point damage and all an atlas has is 120 ish max armor on a very easy to hit CT.
3 heavies can easily do 60 points of damage each in 4-6 seconds. so the best armored mech in the game lasts 6-8 seconds.
that is a problem. speed is a huge advantage in a FPS but the tonnage for large engines increases disproportionately to armor protection. armor is a flat linear value. thats one of the reason a flat across the board increasing in armor is a bad idea.
or lowering damage for all weapons. armor needs to scale based on something in the game that affects the mech survivabilty
currently mech size is ignored.

I think the best armored mech in the game should be able to holds it own against 3-4 heavies for 15-20 seconds not 6-8.
particularly since its such and easy target to 1- hit and 2- place your damage. I think this would be a huge benefit to 3-3-3-3 game play. all it would do is normalize TTk across all mech sizes.

[Joseph Mallan]

Tombstoner, on 30 May 2014 - 05:45 AM, said:

As it is a single atlas facing off against 3 heavies is a joke. with adjusted armor levels i think it becomes a fair fight.

So 100 tons of weapons and armor should be a match for 180+(3 x 60 tonners) tons? Doesn't make sense to me Tstoner.

[Lostdragon]

Magnakanus, on 30 May 2014 - 06:15 AM, said:

Honestly, killing one 100 ton mech with three 65 ton mechs (twice the tonnage, nearly 3x the firepower) should be a joke. Driving an assault should not be a free rambo pass. Reducing TTK across the board is a fine idea, but not for the sole purpose of attempting to raise the assault mech to the level of "solo lance killer". With that you just invalidate light/medium mechs entirely. Even more if the intent is to allow assault mechs to solo duel a trio of heavies.

This. Everyone gets one life. With no respawn, no one wants to play against a mech that powerful. 3x4 would just make that worse, the team with the most Atlai wins. I am not saying the Atlas is not underwhelming now, it is, but the way to fix it is to fix the mechanics that allow poptarting/sniping 30+ pinpoint alphas. The mechs that can do a lot of pinpoint damage are overwhelmingly powerful, especially when focusing fire.

Taking on a good assault pilot on a light mech is really scary. It is suicide for most light pilots, especially if the assault is one of the more maneuverable assaults with a big engine and lots of JJ. I think the assault mechs die too quickly under certain circumstances but I do not think they need buffs because the same could be said of all mechs, especially the lightest.

[Tombstoner]

Joseph Mallan, on 30 May 2014 - 07:33 AM, said:

So 100 tons of weapons and armor should be a match for 180+(3 x 60 tonners) tons? Doesn't make sense to me Tstoner.

To start with the atlas cant use torso twisting effectively against 3 targets unless they are in the same spot. that wont last long unless the 3 are dumb and dont try for the rear armor. if one gest behind the atlas its game over. tonnage would only matter if the atlas can burn down the other 2 before dieing itself, but most atlas pilot strip armor of the rear for a few seconds more life. Numbers mean a lot more in MWO then in TT due to the hard point restrictions. more mechs = more guns.

I know at face value it seems a bit extreme but the context of the fight does matter. In a 3-1 the lone pilot must be on the defensive right from the start due to flanking. where would you put your money on 3 spiders vs 1 atlas. thats almost tonnage equivalent. what about 6 spiders (180 tones) in mwo its the spiders that have the advantage clearly.
in TT id be more inclined to go with the atlas(3-1 not 6-1), again terrain matters and pilot skill, but above all else the hit and damage allocation mechanics. These didn't translate well into MWO.

I'm not saying that 1x 100 ton mech should be able to handle 3 x 65 tone mechs for 5 minutes. i am saying that it should live long enough... more then 4-8 seconds to matter and make a difference in the game.15-20 seconds perhaps. based on something that scales well with how difficult it is to shoot based on size. besides those heavies would also have scaled armor. and if the size difrence between the atlas and the heavies is 15% thats not much more armor.

The way the mech design rules work,speed has a huge premium the larger you get. 400 ltg weights what 52 tones in TT that's just to get the atlas to 60 kph. granted i dont know how that translated into MWO but the premium penalty is still present. then addon hard point restriction. The weapon selection for an atlas is pitiful. i would put my money on 2 x hunchbacks with good pilots vs 1 atlas of any skill other than extraordinary.

lastly the over all size of the atlas makes lasers easier to deliver full damage. facing 2 cats with fat engines and srm/medium lasers is right now not a fair fight. Some mechs are simply too big and suffer disproportionally as a result, scale armo by mech volume

[Joseph Mallan]

Tombstoner, on 30 May 2014 - 09:52 AM, said:

To start with the atlas cant use torso twisting effectively against 3 targets unless they are in the same spot. that wont last long unless the 3 are dumb and dont try for the rear armor. if one gest behind the atlas its game over. tonnage would only matter if the atlas can burn down the other 2 before dieing itself, but most atlas pilot strip armor of the rear for a few seconds more life. Numbers mean a lot more in MWO then in TT due to the hard point restrictions. more mechs = more guns.

I know at face value it seems a bit extreme but the context of the fight does matter. In a 3-1 the lone pilot must be on the defensive right from the start due to flanking. where would you put your money on 3 spiders vs 1 atlas. thats almost tonnage equivalent. what about 6 spiders (180 tones) in mwo its the spiders that have the advantage clearly.
in TT id be more inclined to go with the atlas(3-1 not 6-1), again terrain matters and pilot skill, but above all else the hit and damage allocation mechanics. These didn't translate well into MWO.

I'm not saying that 1x 100 ton mech should be able to handle 3 x 65 tone mechs for 5 minutes. i am saying that it should live long enough... more then 4-8 seconds to matter and make a difference in the game.15-20 seconds perhaps. based on something that scales well with how difficult it is to shoot based on size. besides those heavies would also have scaled armor. and if the size difrence between the atlas and the heavies is 15% thats not much more armor.

The way the mech design rules work,speed has a huge premium the larger you get. 400 ltg weights what 52 tones in TT that's just to get the atlas to 60 kph. granted i dont know how that translated into MWO but the premium penalty is still present. then addon hard point restriction. The weapon selection for an atlas is pitiful. i would put my money on 2 x hunchbacks with good pilots vs 1 atlas of any skill other than extraordinary.

lastly the over all size of the atlas makes lasers easier to deliver full damage. facing 2 cats with fat engines and srm/medium lasers is right now not a fair fight. Some mechs are simply too big and suffer disproportionally as a result, scale armo by mech volume

Ok I see where you are coming from, I still don't agree, but I understand your thinking.

[Eddrick]

Hardened Armor. 2X Effective armor for the cost of Critical Slots = Tank role implemented. Any questions? http://www.sarna.net.../Hardened_Armor

[Mister Blastman]

3rdworld, on 30 May 2014 - 06:02 AM, said:

If PPCs had splash as suggested to and by PGI like a year ago, we wouldn't have all these issues with Ballistics that we suddenly miraculously have.

Really we are complaining about a 30 damage alpha, and instead at looking at the weapon system that does 2/3 of the damage with less weight and no explosive components, we are worried about the 10 damage portion.

Is convergence an issue with lasers? Hell no. Is convergence an issue with SRMs? Nope. Leave pinpoint to ballistics, they are heavy enough to basically prevent any boating without severe consequences, make PPCs do a 5/5 direct splash, which would nerf their effectiveness against smaller mechs, and leave direct damage as Ballistic weapons shtick.

Seconded.

[Thorqemada]

Did not read the whole thread but want to Highlight this "Rule of Thumb" regarding armor:

Pinpoint Weapons will become stronger the more armor is added to a Mech!

Edited by Thorqemada, 30 May 2014 - 10:34 AM.

[Screech]

I fail to see any reason to give people more reasons to play heavier mechs.

[Scratx]

I would prefer to see damage resistance quirks (like the catapult missile doors) handed out to more mechs to patch particular issues (hunchback hunch, for example) rather than across the board armor increase.

I don't think there'd be much issue if, say, front Atlas torso armor had a 10% damage resistance. It's a big target, and that's just a couple more medium lasers needed to punch through. Yet, it'd lend the Atlas greater survivability when engaging targets on the front. We could go and analyse every mech for whether they could use a bit of a boost to help differentiate themselves from other mechs in this way. Might also help in making chassis more different from each other. Centurions, for example, could have their shield arm armor toughened up even more, to reinforce and reward their "I have a shield, I twist to block your shots with it" gameplay.

And doing this doesn't need to mess with mech building rules.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Tombstoner, on 30 May 2014 - 04:10 AM, said:

Spoiler

If you tweek armor per ton you adjust survivability across the board. this is a bad thing because speed interacts with armor.
lights would be disproportionally buffed. then to make maters worse small weapons become next to use less and reenforces the massive pin point FLD alpha.

I think nerfing all weapons used against assault class mech is a reasonable course of action. again it doesn't have to be a flat 1-1 correlation with volume difference. An atlas with 500 Ct armor would change things considerably. it also makes 2x ac-20 combos needed... yes needed to quickly drop something with that much armor.

Beside the rear armor is what you go for on an atlas anyway. its just now you can leave some armor there for a change instead of stripping it for an extra second of survival from incoming front damage.

Correcting armor for mech size simply adjusts things based on shot difficulty created by and arbitrary decision, art work. Things the player has no control over.

Most important of all is that it helps complete the translation of TT to a FPS. In a FPS size matters, in TT all mechs where relatively the same height such that it didn't matter for determining a to hit modifier.

I admit I'm still a bit confused by how you are phrasing your argument, so let me see if I'm following what you are writing.

What I am understanding is that the coefficient that you mention could provide for allowing different mechs at different weights and geometries, different values of Max Armor, while not modifying the universal armor per ton.

So on most lights and mediums, it should remain 32 per ton of Standard and ~35.84 per ton of Ferro or close to those values.

But then take an Atlas, and trying to figure out its armor per ton, with coefficient modifying armor values, could translate to an increase hypothetically to 47 per ton of Standard and ~52.64 per ton of Ferro?



So in other worlds, armor per ton wouldn't really matter, since Max Armor would be modified individually on variants, based on the unique mech geometries, right?

[Pjwned]

I'm not understanding how this is anything except "let's make heavier mechs practically invincible."

[Vertigo 1]

I like this idea and don't see a problem with it being an "under the hood" implementation. Yes, it's a bandaid to an inherent, deeper problem, but it seems like it would be an effective one and make sense at the same time. Similar to Diablo 3 giving Barbarians, Monks, and Crusaders a flat 30% damage reduction compared to Wizards, Demon Hunters, and Witch Doctors.

[RAM]

Tombstoner, on 29 May 2014 - 07:59 AM, said:

if you shoot at something at long range and your convergent point was half way to the target it would be possible for all your shot to criss cross at the center and diverge forming an x completely missing your target.

This 'fatal flaw' was the entire point of convergence.


RAM
ELH

[NextGame]

Add a flat 30 armour to every location of every mech. (except only 10 to cockpit)

[Tombstoner]

Praetor Knight, on 30 May 2014 - 01:34 PM, said:

I admit I'm still a bit confused by how you are phrasing your argument, so let me see if I'm following what you are writing.

What I am understanding is that the coefficient that you mention could provide for allowing different mechs at different weights and geometries, different values of Max Armor, while not modifying the universal armor per ton.

So on most lights and mediums, it should remain 32 per ton of Standard and ~35.84 per ton of Ferro or close to those values.

But then take an Atlas, and trying to figure out its armor per ton, with coefficient modifying armor values, could translate to an increase hypothetically to 47 per ton of Standard and ~52.64 per ton of Ferro?



So in other worlds, armor per ton wouldn't really matter, since Max Armor would be modified individually on variants, based on the unique mech geometries, right?

Mostly
Armor per ton still matesr since the amount of tonnage placed into armor (currently maxed at 19-20 tons) would then be modified upward based on the size difference between the mech and the smallest mech in the game.The most armor you could ever assign would still be 10% of your mechs weight. Then the effective damage adsorption is corrected for size discrepancy's

The amount of armor per ton for all mechs would stay the same. 1 ton=32 point of armor. but if that mech is 5x the size of a commando then the effective damage adsorption of the armor is further increased by 5x to 160 per ton. Now 5x is a lot but i don't have the volumes of the commando and atlas at hand. if that value proves to be excessive then it should be scaled back to fit the needs of the game. The value displayed in the mech lab for armor would be the effective level of damage adsorption.


This is an essential part of translating the TT rule set into a FPS because size matters in MWO but not in TT. both games have basically the same design rules for armor protection. this concept simply helps to correct for the interaction between speed, mech size, armor protection per ton. changing armor per ton buffs lighst disproportionally because of there size and speed.

The kicker about all of this is it would in fact work in reverse in real life since as the mech got smaller armor thickness would increase making it harder to penetrate.

[Tombstoner]

Pjwned, on 30 May 2014 - 02:05 PM, said:

I'm not understanding how this is anything except "let's make heavier mechs practically invincible."

cause your focusing on the 5x modifier in my example it would in application be lower.

It doesn't make assaults invincible, it could if done wrong. using a 5 x modifier for instance but the durability of all mechs is kind of low and for some mechs like the awesome, art work is a disadvantage.

egg shaped center torso's have an advantage over broad flat CT's because torso twisting is not universally effective for all mechs. this concept would help tweak TTk for art compromised mech designs.

[Tombstoner]

Scratx, on 30 May 2014 - 11:28 AM, said:

I would prefer to see damage resistance quirks (like the catapult missile doors) handed out to more mechs to patch particular issues (hunchback hunch, for example) rather than across the board armor increase.

I don't think there'd be much issue if, say, front Atlas torso armor had a 10% damage resistance. It's a big target, and that's just a couple more medium lasers needed to punch through. Yet, it'd lend the Atlas greater survivability when engaging targets on the front. We could go and analyse every mech for whether they could use a bit of a boost to help differentiate themselves from other mechs in this way. Might also help in making chassis more different from each other. Centurions, for example, could have their shield arm armor toughened up even more, to reinforce and reward their "I have a shield, I twist to block your shots with it" gameplay.

And doing this doesn't need to mess with mech building rules.

Your working the same idea i presented. 10% damage resistance is the same as 10% more hp. Over all its really a minor tweek to the mech design rules that are suited for a TT game. This helps to make it FPD friendly.