510 replies to this topic

[Bloodweaver]

soapyfrog, on 08 July 2014 - 11:58 AM, said:

Your graph is not encouraging. Looks to me like 1 or 2 jumpjets is still going to be a way better deal than 4 or 5 jumpjets.

Yeah, exactly my concern as well. Despite the post, it really looks like we're just going to get more of the same. Now it is true that graph doesn't actually include the values (in meters of height) for the y-axis. But the ratios are there regardless, and it does look like you need 6 or more jets to get twice the height of 1. How is this different from what we have already? Oh, because:

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 08 July 2014 - 11:36 AM, said:

Jump Jet's are now doing much less compounded lift than before.

So in other words, each jump jet you add is going to give less lift than the one before it? EVEN MORE SO than it already does?

PGI, I can't even

Edited by Bloodweaver, 08 July 2014 - 03:54 PM.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

I like the renewed gameplay and quality of life focus, however I disagree on the legitimacy of pinpoint pop tart in MWO. I honestly hoped that the tournament was a wakeup call. But I remain ever hopeful that you will get there eventually.

Keep up the (recently) good work! And keep your eye on the CW ball, that has the potential to be the real launch of MWO.

[Sandpit]

Bloodweaver, on 08 July 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

So in other words, each jump jet you add is going to give less lift than the one before it? EVEN MORE SO than it already does?

PGI, I can't even

light mechs using them for mobility will not be affected nearly as much since they aren't going tor height, they're going for mobility. It is going to help mitigate poptarting without hurting the lighter classes nearly as much. They've already talked about making adjustments for the lighter mechs to ensure they don't get hit as hard by this nerf.

[Win Ott]

"Jump Jet Thrust changes culminate into a change in gameplay dynamics in keeping 'Mechs feeling heavy and more tank-like. The way everything was playing out was that 'Mechs felt more like light and agile exoskeletons"

I kinda thought the whole point of many mechs was that they were more agile than big, tank-like, shambling things. What's the point of a Spider, Jenner, or even the poor Locust, if they can't be light and agile?

And what engineer would design a battlemech with lots of jump-jets but fail to build legs that could handle the stresses of landing (or even just running around)? Must be the same guy who makes flamers heat the shooter up more than the target.

Sigh...

[Fiona Marshe]

Jump jet thrust is linked to *ENGINE SIZE* ????

Please reconsider this and make it a fixed value for each chassis. This impacts stock builds and new players significantly, as those that can affort it tend to shove in the largest XL engine they can find, which panders to the jump-sniper brigade.

[Sandpit]

Fiona Marshe, on 08 July 2014 - 04:06 PM, said:

Jump jet thrust is linked to *ENGINE SIZE* ????

Please reconsider this and make it a fixed value for each chassis. This impacts stock builds and new players significantly, as those that can affort it tend to shove in the largest XL engine they can find, which panders to the jump-sniper brigade.

uhm huh?

it's always supposed to have been linked to engine size.
always
it's never supposed to have worked differently

The bigger the engine the more JJ you get. Everyone can afford anything they want. The engines are free. It doesn't pander to anyone, you can buy the same xl engines?

[TexAce]

What the....I don't even...this graph.....ugh

This graph is like saying the total contrary to what you are trying to accomplish....what the...I don't have words for this...

[Agent 0 Fortune]

Engine size is not related to JJ. A highlander with a 270 engine can carry fewer jump jets than a panther with half the engine (140)

[Void Angel]

Sandpit, on 08 July 2014 - 02:54 PM, said:

except for those that don't get dominated by the tactic?

I'm not the one making blanket statements for the entire player population.

Asking to remove poptarts is no different than this list
http://mwomercs.com/...-here-is-wrong/

just because you don't like something, think it's too hard to overcome, and/or too common, doesn't mean it should be removed.

That's what I'm pointing out. There's no strawman. There's a simple statement that any statement regarding the entire community's inability to overcome a tactic is a strawman in and of itself.

"Remove" and "fix" are differnt terms with different meanings. I'm not agitating for the removal of jump sniping, and never have. What I have always fought is shoddy reasoning in support of any position.

You took someone saying that jump snipers are OP, and spun that into, "you're not good enough, and that's why you think jump snipers are OP." That's not what your opponent was saying; you misconstrued his argument into one that was easier for you to knock down - that's what a straw man is, and no amount of prevarication will change that.

Including trying to turn the accusation around. Your argument rests on a point that is false-to-fact: that there are people who are "not dominated" by skilled jump snipers. This is simply not the case. Once you get into the upper echelons of gameplay, there is literally no competitive alternative to the jump sniping pinpoint meta. Can the best teams play other kinds of comps? Sure; seen them do it, to devastating effect. But when push came to shove and prestige was on the line, all the top teams in the last tournament used nearly identical drop compositions. This is not an accident; jump sniping yields substantially better rewards for risk/investment than any other tactic available. It's not an "IWIN" button, but it is clearly superior - if anyone wants to disagree, they'd better be prepared to cite sources appropriate to the extraordinary claim they're making.

Does this mean that PGI should "Remove all t3h P0P74R7$!!1one!?" No, of course not; the mechanic just needs balancing, which is what we're looking at here. But you have to remember that you're almost never going to convince your opponent in an argument over the internet. Sadly, people usually don't argue to get at truth, but to defend their opinions at any cost - so you're not arguing for them, you're arguing for the bystanders. When bystanders see shoddy arguments, it weakens the position.

[R5D4]

Paul Inouye said:

[...] This single Jump Jet causes a maxed Single Heat Sink 'Mech to hit around 3% heat. Adding 4 more Jump Jets will take this same 'Mech to around 10% heat after a full burn.

What this does is not cause a 'Mech to overheat.. but essentially it will stop the 'Mech from cooling down while Jump Jets are in use.

So, please correct me if I'm wrong in this assumption, from what I'm reading this sounds as though heat scaling is being applied the same regardless of the jump jet class. In other words a Jump Jet - Class I (Highlander) produces the same heat output as a Jump Jet Class V (Jenner). Is that accurate?

I really hope this isn't setup in the backend in such a way that these values cannot be changed independently to say tweak the heat on jump jets for a Class V (light) if the community were to find these values are too gruelling. Otherwise we may see an even larger issue arise in yet more people abandoning light class mechs in favour of other weight classes.

Paul Inouye said:

[...] One common misconception that I've seen concerning these changes is that this was supposed to "fix" the "pop-tart meta". That is not the case. Just to be clear, we are not trying to remove pop-tarting from MWO. It is a valid, tactical means of play.

Fair enough, I understand that changing the "Meta" which has been prevalent for the past, what 8 months now? (I've lost track of how long it's been going on), is not in scope for this change. I would ask then are we going to see any announcements in the near future on what is going to be applied to help change the stagnant meta gameplay?

Note that for the purpose of this discussion I would suggest that Meta refers to high impact AC 5/Gauss + PPC + Jump Jets followed up by relentless Arty/Air Strikes.

Edited by R5D4, 08 July 2014 - 04:22 PM.

[Void Angel]

Win Ott, on 08 July 2014 - 04:05 PM, said:

"Jump Jet Thrust changes culminate into a change in gameplay dynamics in keeping 'Mechs feeling heavy and more tank-like. The way everything was playing out was that 'Mechs felt more like light and agile exoskeletons"

I kinda thought the whole point of many mechs was that they were more agile than big, tank-like, shambling things. What's the point of a Spider, Jenner, or even the poor Locust, if they can't be light and agile?

And what engineer would design a battlemech with lots of jump-jets but fail to build legs that could handle the stresses of landing (or even just running around)? Must be the same guy who makes flamers heat the shooter up more than the target.

Sigh...

I believe you are confusing Battletech with Heavy Gear. Battletech has always been about large armored war machines that are piloted like a vehicle rather than run like a mecha. They're more mobile than wheeled and/or tracked vehicles, but they're not supposed to feel like exoskeletal powered armor when you run them around the map - which is what the quote is saying.

Mind you, Heavy Gear is awesome - it's just not this game.

In any case, taking damage running around is a tuning issue, jump jet capable 'mechs can take the stresses of landing if they use their jets properly instead of just hammering down until the reaction mass is gone, and the flamer's heat balance is, well, a balance issue.

[ApolloKaras]

Give me a graph with numbers. This graph is pointless.

[Void Angel]

The graph is illustrative, not analytical - so not quite pointless, I think. Still, kudos for noticing it didn't have numbers instead of jumping to wild, idiotic conclusions!

[TexAce]

Fixed that for you

[Agent 0 Fortune]

At one time PGI was good about making simply gameplay mechanic decisions based on the TT rules and adapted to a real-time environment.
How many mechs opted to carry less than m maximum jump jets, the s shadow hawk is the only one that jumps to mind.
How many mechs carried less than 3 jump jets? The Burbonmech, and only because it capped at 2.

Use those examples s templates to guide your JJ design process.

[Sandpit]

Void Angel, on 08 July 2014 - 04:14 PM, said:

"Remove" and "fix" are differnt terms with different meanings. I'm not agitating for the removal of jump sniping, and never have. What I have always fought is shoddy reasoning in support of any position.

You took someone saying that jump snipers are OP, and spun that into, "you're not good enough, and that's why you think jump snipers are OP." That's not what your opponent was saying; you misconstrued his argument into one that was easier for you to knock down - that's what a straw man is, and no amount of prevarication will change that.

first and foremost, there's more than one "remove poptarts" threads and posts in THIS thread

secondly, show me ANYWHERE that I attacked yours or anyone else's ability to be "good enough".
I pointed out that that is NOT a reason to judge somethign as "op" or to say something needs to be "fixed"

I can overcome the tactic, countless others have overcome the tactic. So those of us that adapt and learn to adjust tactics don't feel it needs to be "fixed" because that implies we think it's "broken" in the first place.

Just because you feel it is, doesn't make it so is my point. You are arguing for YOUR opinion just as you state at the end of your post. Just as everyone else here is. Your opinion is no more valid for anyone else than mine is.

[Felbombling]

What bothers me is a situation where a Mad Cat S can take one jump jet for one ton and one crit and do basically the exact same thing a Summoner can do for five tons and five crits... locked into the chassis. Adding heat is fantastic and long overdue, but the number of Jump Jets on chassis could be made so much simpler. Most players probably looked at that graph and tried to calculate what the minimum amount of jump jets would be for viable jump snipeing. Just take the guesswork and min/maxing out of it, as you did with many Clan construction concepts.

Every engine in the game requires/comes with ten heat sinks. Why not simply treat Jump Jets the same way minimum heat sink values for all engines work? If your Mech has a Jump Jet allotment of five Jump Jets, you have two choices... take zero Jump Jets or a package of five Jump Jets. Now players that wish to use Jump Jets have an investment to make that will leech tonnage away from weapons, equipment, ammunition and armour. I would be hard pressed to find Mechs in the technical canon that go below the number of Jump Jets that their engine rating allowed for. Most Mechs maximized this potential, save for the odd Mech like the Shadow Hawk mounting three instead of five.

I posted this in the General Discussion Forum in a thread entitled 'Jump Jet Rules We Could All Live With'. These examples show how I think the Jump Jet curve 'could' look. Font on the chart is small, I know. Verticle reads 'Thrust Mechanic', horizontal below reads 'Mounted Jump Jets out of Potential Jump Jets'.

Edited by StaggerCheck, 09 July 2014 - 02:30 PM.

[Mawai]

It seems to me that if you want to "fix" jump jets then you need to reduce the effect of one jump jet. The figures you showed in your post indicate that 12 jump jets will reach only about three times the height of one jump jet. This makes one jump jet extremely effective relative to fitting more than one. You get the most effect from fitting the first ... as opposed to one being mostly useless.

A Catapult-J has two jump jets. Your figure seems to indicate that the second jump jet will have a negligible effect instead of doubling the thrust or time in the air.

This seems to me to be a design broken from the beginning.

Will a Catapult-J as an example even be able to jump as high as another mech? How many mechs will be able to execute a DFA attack with your new system? How many will be able to jump over a building or other terrain obstacle or hover to cross a canyon, gully or other obstacle? There are a couple of mechs that can jump a lot (the 12 jump jet spider for example) but these are in the minority ... most can only fit 2 to 6 jump jets.

For light mechs, jump jets can be a key element of their survivability .. they are supposed to be fast and agile and take to the air. You claim to want a more "tank like" feel ... but how many tanks run at 150km/h over uneven terrain? The technology in the game is not tanks ... it is battlemechs and some of them can jump significant distances.

Another factor you could tweak is the recharge time ... if mechs are jumping too often you could just adjust how long they take to recharge rather than the distance they can jump at one time.

Anyway, in the end you will do whatever you like ... without paying the slightest attention to any of hte feedback in this thread. At least that is the treatment I have come to expect ...

[Lyoto Machida]

Xeno Phalcon, on 08 July 2014 - 12:12 PM, said:

Absolute first thing that popped into my head lol.

B-Powder! lol

[Felio]

So does a faster engine make you get less JJ thrust, or more?

Oh, and fix the SDR-5V. You just clipped its wings, which were all it had and weren't enough to make up for its shortcomings (the least weaponry in the game and no quirks to compensate).